Lack of Equipment Causes Maternal, Newborn Deaths in Nigeria, Says Experts

A significant number of maternal and newborn deaths in the country have been traced to equipment deficit in health institutions.

As a way out, stakeholders have stressed the need for adequate, functional and healthy maintenance culture of equipment to prevent 90 per cent of maternal and infant mortality.

They emphasised this at a stakeholders workshop sponsored by Coca-Cola in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Health, the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals and Medshare International Inc, towards enabling safe birth in Nigeria.

Worried by the situation, Consultant & Head of New Born Unit, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, (LUTH), Prof. Chinyere Ezeaka, pointed out that Nigeria is not making the needed progress in combating the scourge of maternal and infant death, which was part of why it missed the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.

She identified leading causes of maternal death to be sepsis, obstetric haemorrhage or bleeding, unsafe abortion, obstructed labour and pre-eclampsia complications and in new born to be preterm birth and low-birth-weight, infections such as sepsis or pneumonia and asphyxia.

She said: “Sadly, Nigeria has the highest number of maternity death in Africa, losing as many as 576 women per 100,000 childbirths and 37 newborn deaths per 1,000 live births.

“This is a statistics that we are committed to changing. To achieve this, we need to strengthen the system, put right leadership and technology in place while effort should be directed at women to empower and educate them on health