Let’s tackle causes of neonatal deaths

Opinion and Analysis

 

By NJOKI NDUNG’U

It is no secret that women related issues are close to my heart. The plight of the rural mother about to give birth with no medical support is one, we as a country must overcome.

legislative commitment to right the wrongs that women are experiencing today.

However, is this enough and are we doing enough?

The truth is that the state of maternal health in Kenya is dire. There are little over 4,000....
gynaecologists and these serve a population of over 40 million Kenyans in this country.

This means there is a large population of women that are not adequately served by trained professionals.

In 2013 alone, a UN Report indicates, almost one million newborns died on the day they were born - accounting for 16 per cent of all under-five deaths and more than a third of all neonatal deaths.

In Africa, this situation can easily be corrected. Midwives deliver majority of the births in the continent.

More often than not however, given Africa’s social-cultural practices and the slow progress with which they have evolved to adapt to modern practices, the midwifery process is flawed, leading to the thousands of neonatal deaths that have been witnessed.

This situation can, however, be reversed. By equipping midwives across the continent with practical and modern knowledge on the best childbirth practices, Kenya, and indeed the continent, will have solved one of the many causes of the high number of neonatal deaths.

Once these midwives are equipped with the requisite skills, knowledge and expertise, what must follow is an elaborate programme that ensures that the trained midwives are absorbed in the health sector and distributed across health centres across the country.

This will ensure that midwives are available where, and when, they are needed, and that they have the skills and competency to support normal deliveries by identifying high-risk deliveries in good time to save the mothers and new-borns.

One such project has been undertaken by Amref, in conjunction with the Chase Group Foundation, in a bid to train 15,000 midwives across Africa. Last year, the training programme reached out to 5,909 midwives.

The training exercise provides the midwives with a chance to receive refresher training on identifying and managing high-risk deliveries.
In rural areas, this could mean the difference between life and death.

The initiative, if taken up by the government in collaboration with the private sector and development partners, would enhance provision of healthcare to expectant mothers and significantly reduce the number of maternal deaths in a bid to surpass the targets set by Millennium Development Goals number four and five.The private sector must join hands with the public sector in developing solutions for this country. Indeed corporate citizens have great responsibility to improve the area in which they are living.