Baby Born Without Eyes Starves To Death Due To Mother's Refusal To Feed Her

A mother has killed her baby girl by refusing the feed her.

The child, who was born on Sunday, August 27, with facial deformities in Kenya with her nose being at the upper part of her face died after her mom refused to breastfeed her.

Family members who spoke with newsmen said the mother Ms Mariam Mwakombo, 22, refused to breastfeed her because she was afraid. The baby cried for hours after birth due to hunger and later died at night. .

Mariam Mwakombo told DailyNation: 

“She frightened me. I have never seen such a human being." Ms Mwakombo’s husband, Hassan Kitoto, said he too could not comprehend why God gave him such a child.

"I am equally scared. I have never seen such a human being. Whatever the elders will decide let it be,” he said. Ms Mwakombo had only attended two antenatal care clinics at a public hospital in Kilifi before giving birth prematurely to the baby at home. .

Upon her birth, the baby was thrown into a pit by villagers and family members in a bid to have the ‘gods’ take care of her. But after she died they buried her outside her parents’ home to ward off bad omen associated with such a child. .

Mwakombo said:

“Hospitals are very far and I couldn’t afford the clinic at private hospitals. I used traditional methods. My water broke while I was doing my chores and she just came out. She’s seven months old. .
I never felt any pains during her birth. But on looking at her, we realised she did not have eyes. I was dumbfounded. The best we could do was throw her in a dungeon in a forest. I did not name her. I could not breastfeed her lest the omen falls on me”. .

Some doctors suspect the child was born with a condition known as anophthalmia. It is a condition in which one or both eyes do not form during pregnancy.