Govt focus on expectant mothers at risk
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Fri, May 4th, 2012 2:00 am BdST
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| The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on Thursday unveiled 30 buses in the capital carrying the message of 'Safe Motherhood' as part of its campaign. (Photo: bdnews24.com) |
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Dhaka, May 3 (bdnews24.com) – The health minister has called upon all to help the government identify expectant mothers at risk.
"We have facilities, we have doctors, we have nurses ... we have everything we need, but we don't know who is at risk," Dr AFM Ruhal Haque said while opening the three-day Asian region meeting on maternal and newborn health in the capital.
The minister made the comment as Bangladesh has made a significant progress in reducing maternal deaths in the last decade, but to cut further, experts say, all pregnant mothers, particularly those at risk, should be brought under the health cover.
Dr Kanta Jamil, the USAID monitoring and evaluation adviser, gave an overview of Bangladesh's successes in maternal deaths reduction.
As around 30 percent mothers deliver at facilities, the health minister said it was 'not possible' for the government to offer services, if all mothers came to the facilities right now.
"It's not even necessary. What we need is to identify the mothers at risk," he said, adding the government had already started an initiative by collecting phone numbers of the pregnant women.
The conference that brought together at least 275 maternal and newborn health professionals from over 20 countries would discuss post-delivery bleeding and eclampsia, a hypertensive disorder during pregnancy, and other causes of maternal deaths in Bangladesh.
It will also discuss on tackling newborn deaths, another major contributor of under-5 mortality in the country.
The government has introduced tablet Misoprostol to prevent post-delivery bleeding while a pilot project is underway to see the effectiveness of Magnesium Sulphate at home-level to prevent eclampsia.
The minister hoped the conference would help Bangladesh learn ways of scaling up those 'good practices'.
Speaking at the function, health adviser Dr Syed Modasser Ali termed the meeting 'significant' for Bangladesh as it would discuss the challenges that the country faced.
He said although the country was on track to achieve MDG 5, challenge remained with regard to 'sustaining the rate given the complex socio-economic' factors that affected the goals.
"There are high rural-urban variations and regional disparities in all indicators," he said.
The 2010 Maternal Mortality Survey showed 194 women of 100,000 die every year, though it was 322 in 2001. Newborn deaths account for 60 percent of all under-5 mortality in Bangladesh.
"These terrible losses are even more tragic because most of them are preventable…these human losses are unnecessary," US ambassador to Bangladesh Dan W Mozena said, "All of us have gathered here this evening…we must stop them."
"America is your partner," the ambassador said citing America's assistance in the health sector.
USAID's Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP), with the support of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, is organising the conference with the theme 'Make every mother and child count'.
In pre-conference meetings, global experts presented and discussed scientific evidences of the impact of calcium supplementation and anaemia correction in reducing maternal and neonatal mortality.
They recommended Asian countries to integrate those in the national policy.
The first day of the meeting would discuss the global and regional progress to date in saving the lives of mothers, and preventing and treating post-delivery bleeding.
On the second and closing day, experts would dwell upon management of eclampsia and services for newborn.
bdnews24.com/nih/nir/2345h
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