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In the past 20 days, we’ve had conversations about Down Syndrome. We told you ways to identify and manage it.
In summary, DS is the most common chromosomal disorder. It is not a disease, neither is it hereditary.

You know what? Caring for our loved ones who are different from us requires 5 key ingredients – love, patience, knowledge, a willing mind, and above all, God.

What supports are available for persons with Down Syndrome? Today we will let picture enlightened you. #WDSD2024 #EndTheStereotypes #Parenting #Advocacy #DownSyndromeAwareness #Engracedones #Nigeria +2

Our children with chromosomal variations are gaining visibility. Grace is at work in them!!!

It is possible for both conditions to co-exist in an individual. Co-mobidity means that one individual can exhibit traits of several conditions even though one is likely to be prevalent.

At the moment, there are records of DS – DS marriages as well as persons with DS getting hooked to neurotypical partners.

Often times, people with Down syndrome are denied opportunity to try new things because of negative perceptions and impossibility/fixed mindsets of those around them.

Younger women have DS births as well as older women. Statistically, about 80% of babies with DS are born to women under age 35 years. This is because it falls within the active years for childbirths.

While most people with the condition live in their homes in Nigeria, depending on severity, of course, abroad, they live either in supported Community Homes, with their parents, or independently.

Down syndrome is not a disease, and people living with the condition do not always die young. The condition predisposes people to several ailments, but that is not to say they are sick. They could be very healthy.

Oftentimes, people with DS are happy and pleasant to be with. They are the light of a party and anywhere they are. It is true that they may not understand sarcasm, but it is certainly absurd to assume they are always happy. They show emotions such as anger, excitement, irritability, and happiness. They are, in most cases, sensitive, sensible, and self-aware.

Agreeably, individuals living with this condition are cognitively challenged and slow in learning in comparison with their neurotypical peers. We must realize that learning in itself has a broad definition. Learning is beyond academics. Sports, Arts, photography, and theatre are a few creative ways in which learning has expression. It would be a grave error to generalize that people with DS are mentally retarded or cannot learn.

In time past, people who lived with DS were either institutionalized or hidden away from the public. This may be one of the reasons why it looked like it was a rare condition.

A stereotype is a preconceived idea or set of ideas that applies to groups of people, places, or situations.
They’re often simple, generalized, or exaggerated ideas like thinking all girls like pink or all boys like sports. They can be about anything—race, age, religion, you name it! They do not capture the full picture of who people really are.

My daughter had wax in her ears for 12 years! We visited several Otolaryngologists in Nigeria but didn’t get results. I think they had a very unfriendly approach and couldn’t get my daughter to respond appropriately. There was also the problem of obsolete equipment. On one occasion, the Otolaryngologist advised me to stop worrying because the child could hear.

Words are powerful. They can kill or heal. If you use the words below, you’ll be destroying lives. Please do no label people with Down syndrome with these words;

Knowledge demystifies things and provides solutions. Unfortunately, some parents just want schools or therapists to do some magic and change their child. Listen up, friends, special needs intervention is a PROCESS which we need to be part of.

Let me place it on record that I didn’t get the chance to make a decision. If I had, even without knowing how wonderful my baby would turn out to be, the decision would have been in favour of life for the unborn child.

Down syndrome affects people mentally, developmentally, physically, emotionally, socially, and financially.