Endangered African children and mothers

SHE is a happy 10-year-old. In three years’ time, she will be a mother — and died. She is an African child-mother. Many African girls become mothers when they themselves are still children. They are not girls guilty of experimentation that led to fertilisation. They are the victims of exploitation by adult males. They are children forced into extremely early wedlock. The girls are locked in a loveless, lethal relationship.

TEENAGE mothers in Africa are at great risk. Many of them do not get to cuddle their babies. They die while giving birth to them. Many of the babies do not survive beyond a few months. It is a virtual catastrophe. Teenagers make up 13 per cent of African females who die during childbirth.

ONE in 22 African women is likely to die while giving birth before reaching menopause. The comparative figure is one in 8,000 women in industralised countries. Pregnancy appears to be a deadly disease in Africa.

EXPERTS say there has been a slight decrease in maternal and newborn mortality in Africa, but the rate is still unacceptably high. The Millennium Development Goal in respect of maternal and infant well-being appears a delusive dream at the rate of progress. The target is for a 75 per cent reduction in maternal and child fatalities in less than 10 years’ time.

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) says the situation is more serious than believed. The WHO/AFRO Regional Director, Dr Luis Sambo, told a media workshop on maternal, newborn and child health in Cape Town, South Africa, that 30 million African children were faced with certain death between now and 2015.

MORE than one million African babies die each year, according to WHO. The causes of death are said to include prematurity congenital defects and infections. Some of them choke to death while being delivered.

MANY of the babies are born healthy, but do not survive because their natural mothers are not available to take care of them. The babies’ mothers are in their early graves where they cannot hear their babies’ cry for attention.

AFRICAN women die in childbirth for many reasons. Many of them do not have access to antenatal care. Most rural areas in Africa lack even health centres. In cities, and towns, poverty pushes expectant mothers to quacks in back streets.

CULTURAL and religious reasons prevent some women from seeking expert advice and management during pregnancy. Even some educated women believe that their partners know best. Prayers are the pregnancy pills that they take.

NON-specialist doctors attend to pregnant women in private hospitals. They refuse to send the women to better qualified doctors during a life and death emergency. Some of the doctors perform crude Caesarean sections and the women bleed to death. This is fairly common in Nigeria and the doctors’ disciplinary body has punished a few imcompetent and greedy doctors in this regard.

WOMEN still largely have their babies at home in the rural areas. The midwives are illiterate and do not know much about hygiene. They may even lack simple obstetric skills. The result is that many women die in labour.

AS the WHO African Director noted at the Cape Town workshop, the chances of a baby without a mother surviving are slim. Maternal death, sometimes, directly leads to a baby’s or infant’s death.

WHAT can be done to save 30 million African children from dying between now and 2015? The WHO regional director’s prescriptions are not new, but African countries need to be reminded of them. Said the WHO official: “There is an urgent need for a continuum of care that spans life, beginning from before conception through pregnancy, childbirth, neonatal period, to infancy and childhood. The continuum of care must also go from the home (by empowering families) to the community through improving primary health care facilities by bringing care closer to home) and to the referal facilities, when needed”.

EDUCATION and enlightenment, in our view, are even more potent weapons in destroying the continent’s high maternal and child mortality rate. An educated woman, free from the incubus of irrational religiosity, will visit a proper antenatal clinic during her pregnancy. She will prepare for the delivery of her baby because she has been told when to expect it. An educated woman is more likely to maintain personal hygiene than a woman with no benefit of formal education. Some healthy newborn babies are infected by their mothers.

AN educated woman knows that child spacing is necessary for her good health and that of her baby. Many women die in childbirth because they have had too many children too quickly or because they do not know that it is risky to become pregnant at a certain age.
Nigeria needs to produce more professionals in the medical sector. Some of the country’s best obstetricians now work abroad. There is also a shortage of qualified midwives.

THE reduction of meternal and child mortality by 75 per cent in seven year’s time is not likely to be met. But doing nothing will be an atrocious crime against African women and children.

“boeing pdp” and bomber jets

THE opposition parties, especially the Action Congress (AC), are not likely to believe that those who hold the reins of power in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) do not have access to certain concoctions that make them to be drunk on power. Though the slogan of the PDP is ‘power to the people’, chieftains of AC like Alhaji Lai Muhammed, who has almost shouted himself hoarse while criticising the PDP, will like to believe that the party he loves to hate is actually a monster feeding on what is left of the people’s power.

ALHAJI Muhammed said recently that the Chairman of the PDP, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, was drunk on power for saying that his party would rule the country for 60 years. Chief Ogbulafor had idealised a one-party state wherein the PDP would be in control of the lever of governance. The PDP chairman derisively labelled other political parties as small aircraft with propeller engines against the roomy Boeing 727 that, he claimed, his party was. He said such small aircraft could never match the power of a Boeing, nor its crafty manouevres during stormy weathers. He said all the political parties combined could never stop his rampaging “Boeing PDP”. It is for all these claims that he got the appellation of a drunk from the AC chieftain.

BUT it appears that Alhaji Muhammed has got so carried away by his constant outbursts and expletives on the actions of the PDP to fully appreciate the import of Chief Ogbulafor’s statement. His predecessor, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, had often said it was the wish of the PDP to rule the country forever. Shouldn’t the opposition parties, especailly the AC, be grateful to Ogbulafor for finally confirming what is clearly the PDP’s agenda?

IT is true that a Boeing can rig its way through tempestuous weathers. Ogbulafor is dead right on this; and Nigerians who witnessed the democratic transition from 1999 to date know for a fact the monumental havoc an internally rusty aircraft with crafty helmsmen like the “Boeing PDP” can cause when it rigs its way through stormy elections. Unlike the small aircraft, the crash of a Boeing is usually very fatal. Shouldn’t Alhaji Muhammed be happy that the internal mechanisms of his enemy’s plane are not working and, therefore, be praying that it crashes?

IN wars, it is the small jet fighter planes that are deployed in the enemies’ territories. It is doubtful if Chief Ogbulafor understands this. But Alhaji Muhammed should stop looking for a drunk pilot on the enemy’s plane, take charge of his own small, propeller engine aircraft and turn it into a powerful bomber jet.