THE campaign for a drop in child and maternal deaths in the country has remained on the front burner across the country. However, since 2007, when Delta State launched the free maternal and child health care, the state has made considerable achievements through sustainable commitment to the ideals of the programme.
Undoubtedly, the problem of maternal and child mortality is not related to the state alone. It is a national challenge that has elicited attention from the federal government due to the growing trend and impact on human development.
It is also not in doubt that the country is grappling with a high rate of child and maternal deaths due to reasons bordering on the subsisting economic situation in the country. As it is presently, while child mortality is projected at 69 out of every 1,000 births in the country (with 0-five mortality put at 128 per 1,000), the maternal mortality rate is put at 576 per 1,000.
While many families have lost either a baby or its mother during childbirth, others have had to witness the gradual death of infants due to carelessness, lack of health facilities, and other avoidable circumstances. As a result of the economic situation in the country, many families have compromised life necessities by giving preference to matters of physical and personal survival over family health.
Besides, experts have identified poor prenatal care and absence of medical facilities, birth complications, diarrhea, malaria, and birth factors as responsible for infant mortality. In the same vein, lack of professional birth attendants, quality health facilities, non-regular attendance at prenatal clinics, poverty, etc., have also been attributed to maternal mortality.
In all these, human lives are lost to preventable diseases, and families are left in grief over what is avoidable and preventable. This is alarming and demands urgent action to tame the danger and offer life to the mothers and their children.
It is the drive to proffer solutions to disturbing cases of child and maternal deaths that prompted the policy of free 0-5 years and maternal health care by the Delta State Government. Following the rewarding records of the policy, which reduced maternal mortality to 212 deaths per 1,000, the state government launched the Maternal, Perinatal, and Child Death Surveillance and Response report for 2021-2023 in celebration of the achievements. The report is gradually being implemented to reduce maternal and neonatal deaths.
In furtherance of the drive to reduce child and maternal death, the state government in 2022 launched the Accelerated Implementation of Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Nutrition Health (AIM-MNCNH) project. With this, the state earned the $400,000 award of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, sponsors of the project, for exceptional healthcare performance.
We praise the efforts of the state government in driving these projects. We are also impressed by the results recorded so far. Most importantly, we commend the state government for keying into it and inaugurating the Accelerated Implementation of Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Nutrition Health (AIM-MNCNH) Advocacy Champions meant to safeguard the lives of women, newborns, and children across the state.
This, indeed, is another measure aimed at promoting the quest for improved maternal and child healthcare. The inauguration of the Advocacy Champions is timely, as the body will not only add voices to the campaign but will reach communities with their message and ensure regular monitoring of child and maternal mortality. The intervention, no doubt, will advance the campaign for healthy children and mothers.
This is not the end. The healthcare advocates and policymakers should ensure that pregnant women embrace early prenatal registration, regular attendance at clinics, quality drugs to assist child development, an intensive awareness campaign, and provision of necessary drugs in primary health centers.
In addition, the advocacy champions, community influencers, and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the vanguard of the campaign should be supported, while local governments should support the state government and groups for achieving results.
The state government deserves commendation for achievements in child and maternal healthcare but should not rest on its oars, as more needs to be done for a safer population of infants and their mothers.
