22 January 2008
opinion
Lagos — HEN Mrs. Omolara Adenike became pregnant few months after her wedding, there was no indication that she will not be alive to tell her experiences on pregnancy and childbirth.
Her ordeal started few hours to her Date of Delivery (D.D), when it was discovered that she was anaemic. The situation became critical as the hospital she registered for ante natal does not have blood bank.By the time her relation, could run around and secure the required pints of blood, she has labouriously given birth, but died almost immediately.
There is also the case of Mrs Ladi Mustapha, a well known lovely lady who lost her life in the hands of traditional birth attendants while giving birth to her eighth child.
The two incidents represent some ugly experience that women are face with and in their deaths may not be unconnected with ill-health, inadequate healthcare or poor nutrition.
The 2006 census put the country's population at 140 million, with women of child bearing age totalling 30 million. A disturbing trend, according to health experts is that about 58 per cent of pregnant women in Nigeria give birth at home in the hands of quacks and only 37 per cent have access to modern health centres. Even in the so - called modern health centres and the facilities about 54 per cent have no professional midwives while 40 per cent have only one or two of such midwives.
The survey further indicates that majority of women in the country are poor and illiterate, and above all, are indecisive on the proper measures to take, as any decision by them cannot be effective without the approval of their husbands or other male relations.
Another survey shows that one child in every 12 does not reach his or her fifth birthday, thereby making childhood in Nigeria a precarious period to children. Most disheartening is the fact that many of these deaths can be prevented using existing knowledge and affordable tools.
Considering the steady increase in infant mortality in the country, one can safely say that it will be impossible for Nigeria to meet up with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing child mortality and improving maternal health by the year 2015.
It was against this background, that DEVCOMS Network-a media development organisation packaged a two day workshop recently in Lagos, tagged "Health Journalists Immersion Programme to strengthen Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Strategy Advocacy in Nigeria."
During the event, participants shared a number of key story ideas and developed new ones aimed at addressing the deaths of mothers and children in the country.
DEVCOM'S Programme Director, Mr. Akin Jimoh, who spoke at the event lamented the high rate of maternal and child mortality in the country. Mr Jimoh observed that one child in 12 does not reach his or her fifth birthday, adding that this makes childhood in Nigeria a precarious period for children.
Most disheartening, he said ,is the fact that many of these deaths can be prevented if existing knowledge and affordable tools are used.
To the programme director, women, newborns and children all have rights and all would benefit from a health system that functions to deliver interventions from the pre-pregnancy period, through pregnancy, childbirth and the post-natal period into infancy and childhood.
To reduce maternal and child deaths dramatically, he said, all women need access to high quality delivery care with at least three key elements, namely, skilled care at birth, emergency obstetric care in case of complications, and a functionally referral system which ensures access to emergency if needed. Another key solution is helping women to avoid unwanted pregnancies and births, newborn and child deaths.
He equally observed that improving maternal, newborn and child health has been slow and uneven, adding that it is due to the lack of political attention and unavailability of the resources required to scale-up the coverage of essential interventions.The director pointed out that more than two-third of newborn deaths, could be prevented by extending the availability and use of existing cost-effective technologies. Although gains have been made in recent years, weak health systems and under-investment continue to militate against widespread progress."
"At the same time, professional clinical care should be strengthened and made more equitable. Strong community service can promote demand for skilled care," she said.
Mr Jimoh maintained that maternal, neonatal and child deaths constitute a huge number of deaths each year, noting that attention and funding for Maternal, Neo-natal and Child Health (MNCH) is much less than in other high profile cases such as HIV /AIDS.
He advised Nigerian journalists to effectively bring to the consciousness of government officials, especially at the local government levels that time - proven interventions can easily be implemented at the grassroot levels.
"Every minute, the loss of a mother shatters a family and threatens the well-being of the surviving children. For every woman who dies, 20 or more experience serious complications", he said.
His organisation, he said, is a media development group founded in 1994 to strengthen news media coverage of science and public health issues.
Also speaking at the event, Ms Nnenna Ike of DEVCOM who spoke on, "MNCH and the need for media advocacy" noted that 1 in every 20 pregnant women in Nigeria dies from pregnancy/childbirth related complications.
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