Forty-year-old pregnant housewife, Mrs. Moyosore Samuel (not real names), like every other expectant mother, was hoping for the best, and everything was going on smoothly until the day she fell into labour.
She was rushed to the hospital and despite the strenuous efforts by the doctor to deliver her safely of the baby, she lost the bundle of joy three hours after giving birth to it.
Mrs. Samuel, like so many other women in the country, has gone through the trauma of losing her baby at birth. So many other mothers, too, have lost theirs before they reached the age of one.
Though many think that this problem occur because of developmental or genetic problems, which the babies could not survive, this is only the case for just one in ten still births; the cause of death is not usually known.
Another problem may also occur from the placenta, which is the temporary organ that joins the mother and her unborn baby, allowing nutrients and oxygen to pass to the baby while the baby’s waste products also pass through it back to the mother.
Sometimes the placenta doesn’t function properly and this may occur gradually. But this abnormally may not be picked up by current routine antenatal monitoring.
A baby that doesn’t get the right balance of nutrients may grow more slowly than expected and a tailing off a baby’s growth during pregnancy can signal a problem. If this occurs, the baby may move less often.
Speaking with our correspondent on the causes of still births and baby mortality, the Chief Medical Director, Haven hospital, Lagos, Dr. Adeshina Adebamiro, said several factors could lead to the loss of babies after birth.
Such factors, he said, include high blood pressure or pregnancy induced hypertension, getting pregnant for the first time or changing of husband and prolonged labour. He described high blood pressure or pregnancy induced hypertension as enormous health issue.
“Another risk factor is changing husbands. If a patient changes husband, the pregnancy she has for the new man becomes her first pregnancy.
“They are prone to having various complications. The truth about this is that, they are inexperienced. Some of them may not register in hospitals and utilisation of maternity centres by pregnant women is not optimal,” Adebamiro added.
He said many of the pregnant women were still not aware that they should register in a hospital, maternity or primary health care centres, where they can safely deliver their babies, adding, “But you will discover that a large proportion of them are not registered in hospitals.”
Adebamiro further explained that women getting pregnant for the second or more times don’t usually suffer pregnancy induced hypertension.
“It is not common among them, but they do have some peculiar problems, too, like delivering big babies and having delivery complications.
“These set of people are always over confident, some even stay at home to deliver, although this is not very common again in the country, except in remote villages. They feel they have had it so many times in the hospital, so it is not a big deal to go to the lady next door to deliver. But then, they may run into trouble,” he said.
Adebamiro also identified bleeding during pregnancy as a major problem that could affect unborn babies. He confirmed that this particular problem had increased the morbidity and mortality rate in Lagos State and Nigeria as a whole.
On how to combat the problem, the doctor said there’s the need for education on the part of the populace, especially on how and when to make use of health facilities.
He urged pregnant women not to rely on the use of local herbs, “even if it will make it easier for you to deliver easily and faster. That is the belief of some people, but some problems may occur during delivery.
“We need to educate the populace and that is where the government comes in. It is better not to use any drug or local herb until you see your doctor. They need to go to the hospital to register for antenatal and they need to deliver in the hospital.”
Adebamiro added, “Government should also improve the training of personnel, both doctors and nurses, improve infrastructure in rural areas, like what the Lagos State Government is doing, to attract more man power, because people don’t die in the cities as much as in the rural areas. Mortality is higher in rural areas.”
