Maternal mortality rate ‘unacceptably high’ in Nigeria – Experts

Family planning experts have said maternal mortality remains “unacceptably high” despite Nigeria’s safe motherhood strategies.

However, the experts said it was necessary to increase the uptake of family planning services in the country to reduce maternal mortality.

According to them, the prevalence of modern contraception in Nigeria, which stands at 12 percent, requires concerted efforts to be increased to 27 percent, in line with the Nigeria Family Planning 2030 agenda.

The experts who spoke at the launch of Community-Oriented DMPA-SC/Self Injection Acceleration in Nigeria and Self-Care Accelerator Projects and Dissemination of the Resilient Accelerated Scale-up of DMPA-SC Self-Injection in Nigeria on Tuesday said increased acceptance in family planning services would help achieve a low mortality rate and ensure a quality of life.

An obstetrician and gynecologist, Prof. Oladapo Ladipo, said: “We have done quite well on family planning, but we have not done enough. If you remember the Millennium Development Goals, we have not achieved any of them, but family planning is the only thing that could help us achieve most of the MDGs.

“Now we have the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, and if we don’t accelerate our efforts to increase the use of family planning, which we know is safe, effective and helps to moderate our population growth, we will not achieve any of the SDGs achieve by 2030.

“We need to increase our advocacy to get the government to increase funding for family planning. My recommendation for family planning funding is that $4 million should be increased to $50 million because it’s for about 50 million women of childbearing age. $1 per woman is not too much.

“Maternal mortality is still very high in Nigeria, despite the safe motherhood programs that have been initiated over the years. It’s a shame we’re still at triple digits, roughly 512 per 100,000 births, which is very embarrassing in 2023. Still, family planning can help us reduce that in a short period of time. Therefore, every woman must start a family. Gone are the days when you get a cow when you have 10 children.”

Also, Country Coordinator, John Snow Incorporated, Dr Adewole Adefalu said the scaling up and use of self-care interventions have the potential to increase the prevalence of modern contraceptives in Nigeria, result in cost savings and accelerate progress towards achieving universal health coverage. speed up. .

“Self-care will empower women and men, families and communities to take effective health actions, with or without support from health care providers. The value proposition of self-care lies in its ability to support healthcare systems. When fully implemented, self-care reduces the burden on health care providers, limiting their role to initiating, educating and supporting individuals more capable of taking effective health actions,” Adefalu said.

He also noted that the Association for Reproductive and Family Health, in an effort to support the government in scaling up the use of family planning, has introduced and implemented the Resilient and Accelerated Scale-up of DMPA-SC Self-Injection project.

He said: “DMPA subcutaneous and self-injection have the potential to expand access and acceptance with the unique option to self-inject. The project was implemented through the project communities and facilities in 10 project states across 217 local government areas.”

For its part, the chief executive officer of the ARFH, Dr. Kehinde Osinowo that the projects would help achieve and escalate adoption of family planning services.

“With the country’s poverty, many women don’t want to get pregnant, and access to family planning services and methods will help them lower the birth rate.

“The disturbing aspect is also that about 48 percent are young people who are sexually active and want to use family planning methods but don’t have access to the methods, and DMPA-SC has the potential to increase family planning adoption by three percent year-over-year, if all states embrace it,” Osinowo added.

The Director of the Reproductive Health Division, Federal Department of Health, Ms Tinu Taylor, said that providing and applying reproductive health and family planning services would improve the lives of women, girls, men, families, communities and the country. improve.

Taylor said: “It will contribute significantly to the reduction of maternal and child morbidity and mortality, as well as other health indicators, including unsafe abortions and HIV transmission.”