By Amos Tauna
Kaduna State government has budgeted over #100 million to ensure safe methods of child spacing with almost all the necessary commodities provided free in all facilities in the state.
The worthy investment is all geared to save mothers and babies through the partnership of the Kaduna State government and partners.
Sensitization and awareness in safe child spacing methods are continuously done in Kaduna state by the state government and partners with a view of ensuring couples understand and appreciate the importance of child spacing as a way of saving the lives of mothers and the newborns.
Speaking to newsmen in Kaduna on Safe Motherhood Day, the Executive Secretary, Kaduna S tate Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Hadiza Balarebe, said the health of mothers have been acknowledged to be a cornerstone of public health and attention to of high level of unecessarily high level of maternal mortality in the state.
She said the state government would continue to accord pregnancy women all necessary care during pregnancy and after childbirth as long as humanity continues to reproduce itself. “Failure to take action to prevent maternal death amounts to discrimination against women because only women face death risk,” she added.
“Complications during pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death and disability among women of reproductive age in developing countries.
“The maternal mortality ratio represents the risk associated with each pregnancy, that is the obstertric risk. It should be understood that pregnancy-related death is the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the cause of death.
“This includes conditions aggravated by pregnancy or its management but excludes accidental or incidental causes.
“Older women and women of black and other races continued to have higher mortality than younger women and white women,” she explained.
The Executive Secretary noted that the most common direct causes of death for all reported cases are hemorrhage, obstructed labour, sepsis, eclampsia, anaemia and unsafe abortions, adding that globally awareness of the issue of maternal mortality began in 1987 at the Safe Motherhood in Nairobi, drawing the attention of the world and developed countries in particular to safe motherhood issues and the commitment to strive for the reduction of mortality and morbidity related to pregnancy and childbirth.
She added that the commitment was reinforced in the International Conference on Population on Development, held in Cairo in 1994 where, in addition to the call to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity by the least 50 per cent by the turn of the century.
