Tag Archives: Newborn health

Political Will; Key to Raising the Bar For the Wellbeing of Women and the Girl Child in Africa – Lanre Olagunju

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During the 4th Women Deliver Conference which recently took place in Copenhagen, the largest gathering on girls and women’s health and rights, for more than a decade, Pathfinder International, in conjunction with Hacey Health Initiative hosted West Africans to an engaging gathering during the West Africa Regional Caucus meeting to further relate the Sustainable Development Goals to women and the girl child.

The West Africa Regional Caucus meeting was aimed at bringing distinguished advocates from West Africa together to share perspectives on issues limiting the advancement of health and productivity of women and girls across West Africa, so as to further strengthen collaboration among advocates and partners.

Mrs. Toyin Saraki, founder of Wellbeing Foundation, while delivering her address at the Caucus meeting, emphasised on the need for deeper intervention on issues that affect the welbeing of mothers and babies across Nigeria. She said that it’s a lot cheaper to adequately cater for an expectant mother than spend about N150, 000 on a coffin, which is about the cheapest coffin in Nigeria. Mrs. Saraki pushed her argument further by pointing out that the drugs required during pregnancy— from conception; including the cost of the four required antenatal visits and one ultrasound scan, goes for about N50,000. She made it known that in case of a Caesarean section, the total cost can’t be more than N120,000, whereas, the cheapest coffin goes for N150,00.

Toyin Saraki further made a case for women and newborns in her action-provoking address, charging government officials present and other stakeholders to pay attention to every pregnant woman and invest in every single pregnancy. She further implored her distinguished audience at the West Africa regional caucus meeting at Women Deliver conference in Copenhagen that asking for increased attention for the wellbeing of women and newborns isn’t asking for too much because such investments yield results by keeping women and newborns alive.

Focusing on the need for improved use of data to increase accountability on issues relating to women and the girl child, Mrs. Saraki urged the Nigerian government to wake up to its responsibility of keeping reliable data and not only keep records of births and deaths registration, saying that all women must count beyond point of birth and death. She also pointed out that if the Nigerian government can achieve the Bank Verification Number registration across the nation, keeping record to better advance the health of women and newborns is achievable. In her words, “There are 176 million of us, and our women are still the largest contributors to maternal deaths in the world, and then all we want to do is count how many children are born and how many children are dying”. Toyin Saraki also added that “I’m sorry, I don’t want to be a part of that game, because that is not a game changer. That is just an accounting clerk of death.”

The Commissioner for health in Ondo State, Dr. Adeyanju, while responding to interview questions on cost implication of putting health facilities and intervention programs to aid maternal health said “initially the investment into maternal care for women and the newborns will seem expensive, but as the project advances and the awareness increases, expectant mothers begin to come to hospital early, this drops the cost of care, because when we started in Ondo State, the cost of healthcare used to be N6,500 per pregnant woman, now it has dropped to about N4,500 because more women are becoming better informed and they come to make use of health facility pretty early. So with that, we are able to prevent more complications, and you know prevention is a far better approach when it comes to health.”

Dr. Dayo Adeyanju further explained that the motivation for government should be in line with seeing woman beyond figures, but as flesh and blood, he reiterated that “seeing every woman as a living entity with flesh and blood has been the motivation for us in Ondo State. We don’t see women as mere figures, and this has greatly been translated into policies; with top notch birth intervention programs like the Abiye and Agbebiye  Save Mother Intervention program, a template for mandatory reporting of all maternal deaths  which has helped to drastically reduce maternal mortality, crashing the maternal mortality figure in the state from 745/100, 000 live births to 106/100,000”, he said.

***Lanre Olagunju is a maternal and newborn advocate. @Lanre_Olagunju on Twitter.

Addressing Nutritional Needs for Child Development – @Lanre_Olagunju

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Malnutrition in its different forms is the biggest cause of under-5 mortality in Africa, it accounts for almost half of all child deaths. Around the world a total of 162 million children under five years are stunted and approximately 52 million children suffer from wasting – a debilitating disease caused by extreme low energy intake, resulting in muscle and fat tissue wasting away.

In 2010, while delivering her speech titled “Change a Life Change the Future”, Hilary Clinton emphasized that improved nutrition during the first 24 months of life provides the child with a valuable “1000 day window of opportunity” for lifelong health and development. Nutritionists and scientists agree, and have shown that tackling malnutrition in children requires dedicated action to improve nutrition from pregnancy to 2 years of age. This implies that solving health problems related to a nutritional deficit will also require that pregnant mothers eat nutritious food at the right time and in the right quantity so that children get a good start in life.

The early days of a child’s life represent a key opportunity to ensure that a path to healthy living is guaranteed. Nutrition officer Dr. Abimbola Ajayi, former Deputy Director of Lagos State Ministry of Health on Nutrition and now a gubernatorial candidate running for Lagos, with over 27 years of post doctoral experience in Human Nutrition explained that “child nutrition is fundamental to a child’s wellbeing, far beyond how many development experts look at it.”

She illustrated her thesis saying that “in a third-world country like Nigeria where over 100 million people live far beyond the poverty line, feeding at all is a major issue, let alone expecting the poor to have appropriate nutrition. Malnourished adults can’t but give birth to malnourished children and sadly that’s how poverty strengthens, the cycle continues.”

Malnutrition can have such serious side effects as slowing brain development Dr. Ajayi explained, “after the age of 3 any delay in brain development or any other adverse effect of malnourishment on a child’s mental development becomes irreversible”.

However, there is a safe and nourishing way to ensure healthy development of a child –breastfeeding “Breastfeeding a child until the age of three will ensure that a child’s mental development is perfect, such that the child’s mental capability puts him/her on a level playing ground with any child in the world” says Dr. Ajayi. However, she was quick to identify why breastfeeding hasn’t yielded the phenomenal results in improving child malnutrition that it’s capable of … she asks “how many women feed their kids till age 3 to make ample use of this natural provision?”

Abimbola feels strongly that the Non-Governmental-Organisations can’t do it all, that the responsibility for feeding the populace lies predominantly with the government. She recognizes UNICEF as the main institution working and making major impact in combating child malnutrition but according to Abimbola many of UNICEF’s contributions fail due to lack of continuity, mainly as a result of inadequate backing from the government. The inability of government to put the right personnel forward to head nutrition projects or departments remains a huge challenge. In her opinion it is an error having medical doctors or those in medical professions head nutrition projects, and these decisions ensure that the projects don’t achieve their main goals “put a nutritionist where a nutritionist is needed and not a medical doctor” Abimbola reiterated.

She concluded “it is the main responsibility of the government to cater for its citizen’s nutritional nourishment” because “nutrition plays a major role in national development”. Good nutrition contributes to children’s mental development and, when people fall ill due to a lack of adequate nutrition, the government will inevitably end up spending more money on her citizens in a medical setting.

***This piece was first published on carmma.org but it has been republished with the permission of the author.

Lanre Olagunju is an hydrologist turned freelance journalist. An alumnus of American College of Journalism, he blogs for the African Union  on the Campaign On Accelerated Reduction Of Maternal, Newborn And Child Mortality In Africa. Follow @Lanre_Olagunju on Twitter.

Views expressed above are solely that of the author and not of Omojuwa.com or its associates.

5 Reasons We Need to Keep Talking About Newborn Health By Lanre Olagunju

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The health of every child is important, particularly that of newborns who are most vulnerable.  Their health and survival remain crucial to every nation and government, basically because a huge number of children under five deaths occur during the first month of life.

An African adage says that a man’s topmost needs and challenges occupy his thoughts and discussions. Whether enough has been said or done about maternal health across the globe is still up for debate, but the fact that we are still losing newborns and mothers for avoidable reasons is the singular reason why we cannot afford to stop talking about how to put an end to this challenge.

Let’s examine some likely benefits of continuing the conversation about the health and survival of newborns in Africa:

1.  The opinion that talking about issues does not change them is not entirely right, because a constantly-discussed problem stands a better chance of grabbing public attention. It is difficult to believe the fact that about 3.6 million babies lose their lives within the first four weeks of life. We need not just to keep talking about these challenges, but also to constantly search for ways to ensure that new-borns and their mothers have the right access to quality health care.

2.  Because the figures of newborn deaths remain alarming, we need to keep talking about raising the standard for child’s health in Africa, especially in light of the fact that the solutions to this challenge is neither scarce or expensive. We only need to encourage our women to adopt habits of good nutrition, healthy home practices, as well as delay childbirth in adolescents whose bodies aren’t mature for pregnancy. For mature women, we can successfully talk them into spacing their children so they can reduce the stress on their bodies. We can locally form mother and baby groups to support newborns by encouraging mothers to make their babies available for timely immunization.

3.  If we collectively play an active role, we can increase awareness by getting the government and relevant agencies to be more accountable. It is important to note that this cannot be achieved in isolation – as individuals we can only do so much – but with a strong voice we can push our government to increase the health care facility for mothers and newborns. That is also a way to hold government to the promises they have made concerning health care programs. By simply talking, we can compel the government to increase its political will to work towards the survival of newborns.

4.  It is also crucial to note that emphasizing child health will help the African continent, as there is a strong link between mortality and economic development. We cannot afford to keep losing children with future potential and then keep pretending that all is fine! When we collectively talk and think about maternal and newborn mortality, we would realize that it would be difficult for any nation to continually lose mothers and babies in such grave quantities.  They play a major role in economic development as natural care givers, and foster sustainable growth and development across the continent.

5.  Finally, increasing the survival and health of mothers and newborn babies is a critical part towards achieving the millennium development goals for 2015 and beyond.

The African continent cannot accept that the issue of newborn and maternal health is “business as usual.”  Good maternal health care guarantees the best possible outcome, and for that to materialize in our nations and in the African continent as a whole, we must make maternal and newborn health a priority. We must keep discussing the different ways to advance this cause. We must keep bringing this issue to the forefront.

Read more:  www.carmma.org

****Lanre advocates on carmma.org on issues related to Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.  He is @Lanre_Olagunju on Twitter.