(By Basil Obasi – ABUJA)
As Nigeria prepares for the 4th Family Planning Conference, reports show that the country’s maternal mortality rate has hit 576 deaths out of every 100,000 live births. Daily.
This translates to about 40,000 women dying every year, with 111 dying daily or 5 per cent dying every hour.
This makes the country home to the second largest number of maternal deaths in the world after India.
This is, however, a reversal of achievements recorded as of December 2013, when the rate was reported to have dropped to 224 deaths per 100,000 live births.
The latest report was presented in Abuja on Tuesday by Chairman of the Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP) Dr. Ejike Oji.
According to the report, most of the deaths are associated with poor family planning strategies.
Some of the deaths occur in high-risk pregnancies, including young girls with obstructed labour.
Many young girls with unwanted pregnancies die from complications arising from procuring abortions.
Also, women who have too many children could very easily bleed to death after delivery.
“In another case, some women’s pregnancies are very close together and their chances of bleeding to death are remarkably high after the delivery,” the report said.
The report said that family planning had been universally accepted as one of the key pillars and most cost effective means of achieving safe motherhood.
The report indicted Nigeria for being behind in the use of contraceptives.
“Nigeria happens to be one of the poor performing countries this season of success.”
According to the report, for the first time in history, the number of women and girls using modern contraception in the world’s 60 poorest countries has surpassed 300 million, but Nigeria has not recorded success.