While doing our monthly shopping at a local superstore today, I noticed the popular "Ghutti" packed in nice colorful bottles on a shelf. For those who don't know, "Ghutti" is the South Asian name for a variety of herbal concoctions, which is traditionally given to newborns right after birth. It is supposed to improve digestion and make the baby feel better somehow. I myself, my sister and my brother also received Ghutti when we were born (I confirmed that with my mother). The World Health Organization, as part of its baby friendly hospital initiative, has clearly rejected feeding the baby anything other than the most obvious: the mother's milk. It was indeed disturbing to see this item being sold over the counter without any restriction or regulation. Several products are being advertised such as here and here. However, the companies producing them have been sensible enough to provide specific indications for such medicines, which would mean that these are not to be given to every infant born on the sub-continent (still physicians may not favor prescribing these). But, the average South Asian mother is driven much by tradition than by logical inquiry of our actions, and therefore would gladly choose to bless her babies with Ghutti.
There may be benefits to the use of such traditional medicine in certain situations, but until there is solid scientific evidence for that, the health authorities need to control the sale of such items. This is but a small part of the larger problem or OTC drugs in Pakistan. One can pretty much buy any drug from anywhere without a medical prescription. In fact, those who don't want to spend time/money seeing a physician will gladly be prescribed medicines by a pharmacist for free.
This issue, I believe, is going to grow even bigger for Pakistan after the implementation of the 18th Amendment whereby the Ministry of Health is abolished along with the national drug regulatory functions. Dr. Sania Nishtar has shared some thought provoking ideas on how to tackle this problem under a devolved system of health care.
2 comments:
Usman, Ghutti is not necessarily a collection of herb but is symbolic gesture. Different culture have different trandition and is the region of south asia this is called ghutti. Ghutti has been comercialised to a great extent and what you saw in market was nothing new and in India was commercially available years ago. In other cultures Tahneek is practice. Ghutti is also not same everywhere as my grand parents told me. It is anything sweet and it is not to be given as a feed rather as a gesture by parents or someone designated-tradition goes that ideally somewise they consider wise etc.
As with any and all practices, people go over board and what you noticed is one such glaring example. Ghutti or Tahneek was not meant as a feed but a gesture which if one goes overboard with these concoctions can harm the baby but if done in a manner that it was traditionally done then it carries no obvious harm in my view...again one must always remember, its a gesture not a feed... and its not limited to Asia-Mid East but Europe and far East also.
Thank you Ali for your comments. Agree with all your points. Just that I personally feel more comfortable about scientifically validated interventions (Not that science is perfect). I'm sure it started as a gesture of some kind, but as with many other 'traditions' in our culture, this one has been distorted into something which may be questionable.
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