Mothers who conceive at a premature age of between
16 and 20 years are risked to lose their children or even themselves due to panic
which overcomes them while giving birth bearing the fact that are younger, a
medical expert has said. Dr. Delila Moshi who is currently in charge of the neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) at Mwananyamala referral Hospital
in Dar es Salaam city said on Wednesday this week that, most of these mothers do
not take basic precautionary measures required of them when maintaining their
pregnancy up to the time of delivery. Dr. Delila said in an exclusive interview
that, as it is their first pregnancy, most of them have a tendency of shunning
away from attending clinics whereby they could be enlightened on the basic
principles of child health education and how to take care of themselves before
and after child births. She said most of them lack proper education that could
guide them into becoming enlightened on how they are supposed to do whenever
are pregnant, and what steps could they undergo through in order to save their
infants from being attacked by airborne diseases immediately after child birth.
The medical expert was contacted the specialist and carried a round up survey
with a view to know why both child and maternal mortality rates are increasing
in the country, a factor which ironically has led to absolute failure by the
government to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) in the aspect of child
and maternal health care. Dr. Delila mentioned other factors are due to failure
of government which does not provide enough medical working facilities
including drugs in its hospitals to take
care of the likely infected infants who most of them are affected by pneumonia
and meningitis which kills them more quickly in early months after delivery. Elaborating
about her unit to which she is in charge, Dr. Delila noted that, the situation
over there is so pathetic as there are no enough space to take care of infants
as per the medical directives.
However
she clarified that, the neonatal ward at the hospital has two large rooms each
one is consisting of 9 beds on which are sometimes forced to place three
mothers with their newly borne babies on each bed otherwise the rest have to
sleep down for lack of beds. She said sometimes children are born up to 160 per
day making it difficult to arrange for their accommodation, she said adding
that reasons are due to the influx of expectant mothers who comes for delivery
at the hospital. Earlier, a specialist for women diseases Dr. Augustine
Manyanga at the hospital and clarified some factors that led to the mortality
rates that include profuse bleeding while giving birth an aspect which he said is uncontrollable if
a patient is anemic, a state of having less blood content. Other reasons he
noted are High blood pressure that causes ‘Eclampisia’ resulting into the
infections on human brains. According to him, this is dangerous if not treated
on time brain that affects brains He motioned other factors as due to Illegal
abortions, failure to transport expectant mothers to the hospital on time as
most of them dies on their way to the hospital, and such cases are numerous in
rural areas where people are engulfed with poverty stricken situation. Despite
government efforts to remedy the situation, still there is a wide shortage of
Midwife staff coupled by insufficient
number of medical clinics, as the situation is more serious in most rural areas
in the country has exacerbated the high extent of the mortality rates. According
to him, the current statistics of the mortality rates on women stands at 454 in
every 100,000 child deliveries, which he says is worse in rural areas. He
therefore suggests that, the government should do all it can in order to
increase the required staff and concentrate more in rural areas whereby health
knowledge about child delivery is still inadequate as most people perpetrates
their minds on witchcraft beliefs.
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