Where nannies get crucial child care tips

On the afternoon of February 22, in the bustling Ayany estate in Kibera, seven-month-old Jayden Ogutu died while under the care of his nanny.

Though the nanny gave inconsistent accounts of what happened, the boy’s parents believe she was forcibly feeding him porridge when he choked and died.

“A neighbour who came to the house said he found that the child had vomited on the seat, on the carpet, and on the bed. It seems that she force-fed the child with kienyeji (traditional) porridge and he choked,” the boy’s father Julius Ogutu said on Friday.

“She tried to make the baby vomit but it’s like she saw the child was overwhelmed. She changed the baby’s clothes and went to call the neighbour,” a forlorn Mr Ogutu said.

Baby Jayden’s death mirrors the one that occurred in Bungoma County early this month where eight-month-old Christian Gabriel died under the care of his nanny who later ran away, leaving the body wrapped in a blanket. A post-mortem on the toddler’s body showed he had died from choking.

The incidents raise the question on whether those left to take care of babies have the right skills — and their response to emergencies.

Two men involved in placement of house helps in Nairobi and other towns across Kenya admitted that only a few employers demand to know if a nanny is trained on paediatric emergencies.

Mr Evans Muremi, who has been involved in the business of vetting house helps and connecting them with employers for the past five years, said that in fact some parents would rather go for an untrained nanny because a trained one will need a higher salary.

RELUCTANCE FROM EMPLOYERS

There are also some biases which he said make employers reluctant to send their nannies for training.

“Sometimes, if the employer sees their house help doing well, they say, ‘I don’t want her to interact with other girls. She will change for the worse.’ You try to explain why it is good for them to attend and that you have no intention to snatch their house helps from them,” he said.

And Mr Simon Mshindi, who is also engaged in placing house helps across Kenya, said only a few clients insist that a nanny be trained.

“When you tell them the amount for a trained person, compared with the untrained, most of them usually prefer the untrained ones as long as they have the experience,” he said.

Both Mr Muremi and Mr Mshindi said they have trainers on call who can teach nannies at a fee if employers request so. “Training is very important. It is only that in most cases, we usually bypass that aspect. To me, we should always ensure our house helps undergo that training,” Mr Mshindi said.

In the case of the nanny behind the death of Jayden, Mr Ogutu said he had little time to gauge her expertise because he is often away from home, being a long-distance truck driver. “I didn’t see her a lot. My wife told me she had got a house help,” said the 40-year-old.

On the day Jayden died, he received a phone call informing him of the news.

But despite all the questions, he decided he would report the woman to the police due to the grey areas in her explanation “because the most important thing was my son and he is dead”.

“I think the baby was given porridge improperly. It’s only that there is nothing I can do that can reverse the situation. Nothing can bring the boy back to life. I just decided to leave it at that,” he said, adding that the woman was dismissed.

He has, however, learnt a lesson. He now says parents should be wary of leaving a baby who has not started talking to be taken care of by a nanny. “There is no need employing a house help. If you have a child, you should even let the mother stop working to raise the baby to reach an age when he or she can feed themselves and talk. Then the mother can start looking for a job again,” he said.

While such a radical decision puts many parents in a dilemma, the likelihood of a fatality happening at home can be lessened if the nanny gets training, according to Mr Francis Githua, the co-ordinator at the International Safety Training Centre (ISTC) that is based along Nairobi’s Baricho Road.

REGULAR CLASSES

The centre offers regular classes on paediatric emergencies and gives certificates for a day’s training. However, Mr Githua reckons that not many people enrol.

“The challenge we have had is that the uptake is low. This training is highly subsidised but you find even the mothers themselves do not present themselves here,” he said.

Mr Githua, a paramedic, says it is risky for any parent to leave their child under the care of someone who lacks basic emergency skills. “If we can come up with a programme where every nanny should have basic medical care skills, that would save many children,” he said.

When training on paediatric emergencies, Mr Githua says his organisation places emphasis on choking, burns, poisoning, drowning, breathing problems, high fever and seizures, stings and bites, fractures and broken bones, head and spinal injuries.

And while training is important, use of technology to refresh the nannies’ knowledge is equally good, according to Ms Isis Nyong’o, the founder and CEO of mumsvillage.com, a website dedicated to giving expert advice to mothers.

Ms Nyong’o said a parent can do simple things like playing YouTube videos on first aid techniques to their nannies.

“There is so much content that’s in video format where the nanny doesn’t have to be able to read English,” said the mother of two. Parents, Ms Nyong’o added, should be attentive when vetting prospective nannies. “It’s not just asking the question, ‘have you been trained?’ but asking to see a certificate,” she said.

“Also, ask if they have ever been in a situation where they was an emergency and what they did. When you ask someone that, you get their answer on their experience. If they have not, then you need to think about training,” added Ms Nyong’o.

Ms Nyong’o noted that a nanny should always have on her phone a list of numbers she can call in case of an emergency. The parent also has a duty to make the nanny comfortable to report any emergency.

Alongside that, Mr Githua, the trainer at ISTC, said every home should have an emergency kit.“It should be well-stocked and contain the facilities that are required; not forgetting a thermometer,” he said.

But when all is said and done, it may take time to convince Mr Ogutu — who is still mourning the loss of Jayden, the lastborn of his four children — that there is a nanny who can be trained well enough and be vetted well enough to be left with a toddler.

“You cannot trust these housemaids, unless it is your mother or mother-in-law. Someone with a very close relationship with the child. But these outsiders, they are all after money,” he said.