Maternal mortality is becoming worrisome in Nigeria and other African countries. Maternal mortality not only does it affect the families in Nigeria, the society but also the Nigeria economy although just fewer than five undergraduate research projects have been able to ascertain the correlation between maternal mortality and the supply of labour force to the Nigeria economy.
Maternal health care
This is the overall wellbeing of women at the stage of pregnancy and children below age 5. Maternal healthcare is comprehensive as it includes educational, social, nutritional services as well as medical care during and posts pregnancy. As has been observed, some reasons have been attributed to why many pregnant and nursing mothers chose not to make use of appropriate antenatal and postnatal cares. Some of these reasons can be cultural, hereditarily related to the social, economic and political developments. This implies that both the natural environment-biological-and the social environment perform powerful and critical functions in healthcare utilization behaviour of women across most African societies. Cultural factors, therefore, are a major determining factor influencing health care utilization behaviour of pregnant women in Nigeria.
Maternal mortality
Maternal mortality refers to any loss of a woman’s life resulting from pregnancy complication or death within 42 days after childbirth, notwithstanding the period or site of the pregnancy, emanating from issues that are linked or escalated by the management of the pregnancy but not from accident or incidental factors. There are other known factors aside medical conditions responsible for maternal mortality in Nigeria-these factors include but are not limited to social, economic and cultural factors, which have a direct influence on maternal mortality. Interestingly, maternal mortality in most of the rural areas in Nigeria is caused by other precipitating factors that are non-medical. These factors range from poverty, low level of education or absence of it, prohibited food, low purchasing power and certain harmful cultural beliefs and practices; more so, with the introduction of user charges in state and federal owned hospitals, high percentage of women, especially in the rural areas, now patronize faith clinics and traditional practitioners as alternative health care.
Causes of maternal mortality
Females in the age group of 15-19 years are the ones at risk, thus reinforcing the fact that most of the young females are at increased risk of death due to pregnancy and its related causes and complications. Each year approximately twenty million females who survive childbirth, suffer from multiple chronic ailments resulting in maternal morbidities. According to the WHO fact sheet, in the year 2010, 287, 000 women died while they were pregnant or during the process of childbirth. Most of these deaths were reported in low resource settings and they could have been prevented if had a chance to be supported by good infrastructure and health services. Nearly 50% of maternal mortality is reported in developing countries showing a clear gap between the privileged and unprivileged. One such country struggling to reduce maternal mortality ratio to less than 70/100,000 women in Nigeria, a large country in Western Africa. The country faces various challenges; due to its large population of over 160 million, geography, high rate of population growth, cultural and religious diversity and continuous threats of terrorism. Various predisposing factors have been identified, that contribute to high maternal mortality, one of them being early marriages. Although the legal age for marriage in Nigeria is 18 years, yet in northwestern parts of Nigeria with the Muslim majority, girls are married at an early age, soon after they reach puberty due to economic, social or religious constraints.
Improvement in maternal health care and maternal mortality
Lack of access to health facilities is a major cause of maternal mortality, but infrastructural constraints result in very few health facilities in rural areas. In Nigeria less 34 per cent of women giving birth have a skilled attendant present, which is a major cause of maternal mortality. In response, most African governments are working to mobilize health personnel to rural areas to provide healthcare. Take for instance Tunisia’s 80 per cent reduction in maternal deaths was due largely to the country’s emphasis on skilled attendance at delivery. Community Health Workers (CHWs) are instrumental in providing healthcare to underserved populations and can be vital in reducing maternal mortality.