Again, An Alarm on Maternal Deaths

The United Nations (UN) has, for the umpteenth time, regretted that Nigeria has not been making progress in reducing its maternal deaths.

After reviewing the Shadow Report submitted by Nigeria to the 41st session of the UN held in New York between June 30 and July 18, 2008, the UN Committee on Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) lamented the inability of Nigeria to reduce its high maternal mortality rate before the year 2015, the UN deadline for global improvement of all human development indices.

Consequently the UN CEDAW Committee has urged the Nigerian government to improve the availability of safe-abortion, contraceptive methods, post-abortion care, planning information and services, etc, to reduce Nigeria’s soaring high maternal mortality rate.

Without doubt, maternal mortality is preventable. What is required is the political will to do the right things. As we noted in our previous editorial on this matter, the high maternal deaths in Nigeria is directly attributable to lack of accessible, acceptable and affordable primary, secondary and tertiary health care. Severe post-partum bleeding is the number one cause of maternal mortality worldwide. Without intervention, a woman with severe post-partum haemorrhage can bleed to death in three to four hours.

In Nigeria, bleeding during birth and after birth accounts for about 44 per cent of maternal deaths. Most general and teaching hospitals in Nigeria are crippled by lack of drugs, water, electricity supply, access to skilled birth attendants, medical consumables, equipment and ambulance for emergency.

Aside from these medical factors, other socio-cultural and economic factors account for the rising maternal death in Nigeria . They include low status of women, poverty, superstitious beliefs, ignorance and traditional harmful practices. Some 60 per cent of births in Nigeria are not attended to by medical experts. Most Nigerian village women are so poor that they give birth along the village paths and village huts with no running water, no sterile suppliers and no skilled birth attendants capable of providing emergency obstetrical care.

We believe that if the government could give as much attention to women’s reproductive health as it appears to give to pregnancy prevention, maternal mortality will significantly reduce.

Maternal mortality rate has dropped in many countries due to improved health care and obstetric techniques. For example, Sri Lanka reduced its maternal deaths from 550 per 100,000 live births in the 1950s to 80 per 100, 000 live births in the 1970s after it overhauled its health system to ensure that there is skilled attendance at child birth even in rural areas.

As the UN pushes Nigeria to achieve the MDGs, our government should invest heavily in comprehensive and essential obstetrical care that values the lives of mothers and their children. If maternal death is defined as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, then it is imperative that our government provides trained birth attendants in our hospitals to attend to our pregnant mothers.

We appeal to corporate bodies and agencies that support health care delivery in the country to focus more attention on the critical area of the lives of Nigerians.

There will be an appreciable reduction in maternal mortality when we realize that life and death for our mothers and babies goes beyond policy papers, but centres on improved health care system. Nigerian women deserve access to affordable health care and obstetrical services that will save their lives and the lives of their precious children.

THISDAY ONLINE