Kaduna state government has recorded 148% increase in Post-Partum Family Planning from mothers who took up child spacing after/family planning immediately after delivery.
The state also recorded an increase of 28.3 % in facility delivery after the adoption of the Group Antenatal Care intervention project.
The State's Commissioner of Health, Dr. Amina Mohammed-Baloni, made this known during the factsheet presentation by a non-governmental organisation, known as the Centre for Integrated Health Programs, (CHIP) saddled with the responsibility of implementing the Group Antenatal Care (G-ANC ) Project on Kaduna.
Dr. Baloni said over 309,751 pregnant women were enrolled in the G-ANC intervention in 23,220 cohorts in Kaduna and the proportion of women who booked at gestational age, which used to be less than 20 weeks rose from 11% to 30%.
She added that Women completing ANC increased from 26 to 44 percent.
According to the commissioner of Health, facility delivery in Kaduna rose from 73,563 to 102,571 (28.3% increase) with over 90,000 deliveries by skilled birth attendants after the implementation of G-ANC.
She added that the "Proportion of ANC Mothers that returned to the health facility within 72 hours after delivery for Post Natal Care (PNC) improved from 29 to 82%. Mothers that take up family planning methods immediately after delivery (Post-Partum Family Planning), had had a 148% increase from 11% to 2 post-implementation.
She explained that the intervention was aimed at helping in the fight against maternal mortality by improving the number of pregnant women that visit healthcare facilities for antenatal.
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She called on pregnant women in the state to visit primary and secondary healthcare facilities to access antenatal care.
Baloni noted that the state has a challenge with maternal mortality and infant mortality and this is the kind of intervention that they thought will help.
Speaking to newsmen shortly after the event, Dr. Francis Ogrima, the Technical Director of G-ANC for CHIPS, said with the support of the Kaduna state government, the intervention will be scaled up to other health facilities in the state.
According to him, "This was tested in a few health facilities and has shown good results. Once Kaduna takes the lead by stepping it down to other health facilities, we are confident we will have improvement not just in skilled birth attendants, but also in delivery taken by skilled health care workers. We should improve the eight antenatal visits which is the current recommendation by WHO."
