Maternal Health Care in Africa by Boniface Tatchwenglie Nasah, J. K. G. Mati, Joseph M. Kasonde - Essay Example

"Maternal Health Care in Africa by Boniface Tatchwenglie Nasah, J. K. G. Mati, Joseph M. Kasonde" is an engrossing example of a paper on maternal health. Developing countries are the biggest victims of complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.  Africa has suffered more than any other part of the world in this bid. According to a survey, more than 5 lakh women die every year due to complications in their maternal health. Of these 5 lakh people, 90% of deaths take place in developing countries like Africa. It is not an unknown fact that most of these women are from Africa and in Africa, the sub-Saharan African region. This is an alarming reality and needs to be taken care of urgently. The situation has to be controlled and death cases have to be brought down to nil. The book throws light on maternal health care issue care in Africa from an organizational perspective. It puts forward different clinical problems and suggests different ways of dealing with those problems. It points out that advancements and improvements in technology cannot be fully relied on to improve the state of maternal health of women today in Africa. Yes, technology transfer will prove to be a huge buffer in this endeavor but this alone cannot give maternal health the giant leap it needs as of today. Technology should only be supported with the proper delivery of health care. They both need to go hand in hand. The book points out some of the main reasons behind maternal deaths in Africa. These include “obstetric hemorrhage, puerperal sepsis, pregnancy-related hypertension, obstructed labor and ruptured uterus and complications of unsafe abortion”.  (Markel) Of the aforementioned causes of maternal death, hemorrhage, sepsis, and eclampsia account for most cases of maternal deaths in women in Africa. Then there are some indirect causes that also contribute to maternal health issues in the continent. They make up for 20-25 percent of maternal deaths.  These indirect causes include HIV/AIDS, malaria, heart-related diseases, lung liver, and kidney-related diseases, anemia, and even ectopic pregnancies. There are just not enough and adequate facilities in Africa to take care of these issues. Hospitals in the region are numbered and placed very far away from each other. The caretakers in these hospitals are not well trained and are not at par with the standard of health care followed everywhere else in the world. Most of the good doctors in the region tend to move to other countries where they are paid better and have more perks. There is also a huge dearth of sophisticated equipment and drugs. Transport facilities are not adequate. A lot of times pregnant women have to walk all the way to the hospitals and this means only 20 percent of births can take place in these hospitals.

More than 50% of births happen inside homes only and the mothers do not get the help of qualified nurses and midwives. Poverty is another major hurdle. A normal hospital birth would cost around six dollars while a cesarean will cost around fifteen dollars. There are traditional birth attendants floating around in the region but in most cases, they are not qualified enough and they charge as low as 2 dollars. Home births trigger more maternal health problems then hospital births yet people are not educated and aware enough to understand. 30% of births take place in the local clinics of Africa. Even in these clinics mortality rate is not any less. It is higher than that in hospitals primarily because these clinics are not well equipped. In Africa, the fertility rate is relatively higher so there are more births than in Africa than in any other continent. When women have more children, it automatically aggravates the risk of having maternal health problems. The child mortality rate due to aids, starvation, malaria and limited knowledge/availability of contraceptives is also one reason behind more births. Because children die, people keep on wanting more children to sustain their lineage. In general, there is little education about family planning in the region. Girls are not aware of contraceptives, the concept of family planning and the need to opt for fewer births. As a result, there are more pregnant young women in this region than in any part of the world. A lot of times the bodies of these girls are not even fully developed to cope up with birth and maternal health issues.

              The book should attract a lot of eyeballs from clinicians, students pursuing medicine and nursing, health planners, those associated with community health-related services, post-graduate services enrolled in obstetrics, government and non-governmental organizations that are committed to good quality maternal health care services. Towards the end of the last century, Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest maternal morbidity and mortality rates. The government was miles away from its goals of safe motherhood. Various measures were taken to create more awareness about maternal health-related issues in Africa but to no avail. Some conferences were held in the region to enlighten the health care officials in Africa of ways to deal with these issues. These conferences drew a lot of attention to reproductive health and rights. Some of the reasons behind the impact people can have on illnesses were also critiqued over in the book. These include

• Physical dimension: it involves the genetic reasons that impact the health and healthcare practices provided to such people. For instance, people with a history of diabetics in the family have a higher risk of developing it.
• Emotional dimension: it basically deals with how the body reacts to certain things, situations or even drugs in case of cure. For instance, before a bypass, the old man gets high blood pressure due to anxiety and nervousness.
• Environmental dimension: this includes factors involved from the environment, for instance, the climate, pollution or food. Due to a cold climate, people get cold and fever.
• Intellectual dimension: this involves the cognitive approach or experiences in the past which enables the person to have and behave differently in terms of healthcare and practices.

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