'Awareness can help reduce infant, maternal mortality rates'

Govt focusing on educating pregnant women on health, nutrition

PESHAWAR: ‘Missing links’ between the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) health department and the Population Welfare Department (PWD) are responsible for an increase in neonatal, infant and maternal mortality rates in the province.

This was suggested by officials at the District Health Information System (DHIS) days after data showed that neonatal deaths in the province had gone up by nine per cent this year.

The rate has increased despite the fact that there are sufficient numbers of Lady Health Workers (LHWs) and Mother and Child Health (MCH) programme employees.

According to the health department officials, annual reports bearing details of prevalent diseases, deaths caused by the diseases along with statistics obtained from all the districts, had been sent to the health ministry with recommendations.

They suggested that LHW, as well as MCH staffers, must be involved in spreading awareness amongst the people since a majority of neonatal deaths had reportedly been caused by underweight babies.

“PWD must set up their offices in each district headquarters hospital so that mothers can be educated about diet, how important it was for a mother to be healthy before giving birth to a child apart from undergoing regular physical checkup to determine their haemoglobin [a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body] levels,” a senior health official recommended.

Earlier, DHIS Programme Manager Dr Akhtar Javed had told the media that the government had recommended renewed focus on nutrition since they found that haemoglobin levels for many pregnant women were found to be below the minimum level. He termed the low haemoglobin levels the reason for underweight babies.

“Many of the children born and who could not survive were underweight and weigh under 2.5 kilogrammes, which is something alarming,” Akhtar said during a news conference on Monday, adding that of the 3,500 neonatal deaths, 1,832 weighed less than 2.5kg.

However, he stated there it was still possible for underweight babies to survive.

Akhtar, however, stressed that greater awareness to tackle malnutrition was key. He added that nearly all of the medicines required during pregnancy were available for free, but people were reluctant to avail free medicines.

Talking about the neonatal deaths, Akhtar stated the death ratio fluctuated since data relating to displaced children was also included.

Moreover, of the 26,740 women who gave birth, the haemoglobin level for 459 pregnant women was below 10.

“No anaesthesia expert will be ready for pregnant women when her blood level is below 10,” he said, adding that mothers needed to be educated about their health.

Dismissing some claims that a lack of ventilators was responsible for the deaths of so many infants, Akther said that as many as 46,023 babies were born last year, and that if someone termed shortage of ventilators and incubators as the reason for the deaths, they need to be told that not even a single country can provide ventilators and incubators to these many babies.

To further improve the health department, Akhtar stated that the government plans to set up independent boards for the district headquarters hospitals which would include 40% representation from the community so that the problems faced by the community are addressed.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 18^th, 2017.