WATCH: Nigerian father breaks down, blames ‘foolish faith’ after AS-carrier couple welcomes child with sickle cell

• A Nigerian father has opened up about his regret after he and his wife, both AS carriers, had a child with sickle cell disease.

• He says his religious beliefs influenced the decision, as he believed prayer and his faithfulness to God would protect his child from the genetic risk.

• His emotional warning has sparked debate online, with the father urging couples not to ignore genotype results or rely on faith alone when making reproductive decisions.

A Nigerian father has opened up about the painful experience of raising a child with sickle cell disease, blaming what he now describes as his “foolish faith” for a decision he wishes he had made differently.

In an emotional video shared online, the father said he and his wife had both discovered that they carried the AS genotype before they got married.

According to him, the couple dated for three years and deliberately avoided sex, and even kissing, because of their religious beliefs.

He said they were deeply committed to their faith and believed that their obedience and prayers would protect them from having a child with sickle cell disease.

But that did not happen.

The couple eventually had a child who has sickle cell disease, and the father said watching his daughter go through a painful crisis forced him to confront the decision he had made years earlier.

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“Why is she a sickle-cell patient? Because of my mistake, a foolish mistake,” he said in the video.

The father explained that he had previously watched videos of his wife and children going to the hospital during his daughter's crises but had never fully understood what the experience was like because he was not always physically present.

He said being with his family in Nigeria and witnessing his daughter suffer through a crisis firsthand left him unable to sleep.

“I couldn't sleep throughout last night,” he said, before explaining that his daughter was experiencing a sickle cell crisis.

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He also admitted that his daughter had consumed some things she was not supposed to eat or drink, which he believed contributed to the crisis.

The experience prompted him to question the way he had approached faith when he and his wife discovered they were both AS.

The father said he had prayed and fasted, believing that because of his commitment to God, they would somehow be spared the outcome associated with their genotypes.

“I felt like, even though we discovered that we are both [AS], I'm so faithful to God that God will not allow me to give birth to a child who is sick,” he said.

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He now sees that decision differently.

“It is not that God refused to answer me. No, it was foolishness,” he said, arguing that faith should not replace an understanding of biology and the risks involved.

His comments have sparked conversations online, with some people praising him for being honest about his experience, while others have criticised his decision to ignore a known genetic risk.

For couples planning to have children, the AS genotype is important because when both partners are carriers, each pregnancy has a 25% chance of producing a child with sickle cell disease, a 50% chance of producing a child with the AS trait and a 25% chance of producing a child without the trait.

This does not mean that every AS-AS couple will have a child with sickle cell disease. The probabilities apply to each pregnancy independently.

READ MORE: Love & Genotype: 5 ways AS, SS couples can get married

Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that can cause episodes of severe pain, anaemia, infections and other complications. 

A sickle cell crisis can require urgent medical attention, depending on its severity.

The father's story has therefore revived an important conversation in Nigeria, where sickle cell remains a major public health concern. 

Religious faith and personal convictions may be important, but they do not change how genetic inheritance works.

His final message to others considering a similar decision was: “Don't do it.”

For him, the warning comes from a deeply personal place. It’s no easy thing watching his child suffer through a condition he could have avoided by taking the information he already had more seriously.