Involve key stakeholders to improve maternal and neonatal healthcare in Ghana - RISE-Ghana
As part of efforts to improve maternal and neonatal health care services and to reduce its associated deaths in the country, fathers have been advised to support and accompany their expectants wives to health facilities for medical care.
Advertisement
They have also been admonished to assist their wives to practice exclusive breastfeeding when they deliver.
The advice follows the fact that fathers play critical role in interventions meant to improve maternal and neonatal healthcare provision.
It is also believed that fathers contribute significantly to the war against maternal and neonatal deaths globally.
Neonatal and maternal deaths are still high in Ghana, particularly in rural communities. Over the years, many expectant mothers and newborn deaths have been recorded in the various health facilities across the country.
The government through the Ministry of Health (MoH) and other development partners has initiated different policies and interventions to deal with maternal and neonatal healthcare delivery in the country.
However, in spite of the key role fathers’ play in reducing both maternal and neonatal mortalities, their involvement in such interventions had been very insignificant.
Some women being sensitized about maternal and neonatal health care delivery
In Ghana, nearly 29,000 newborns die annually, accounting for as much as 80 newborn deaths every day, with 36 per cent of these deaths occurring within the first 24 hours of life and 73 per cent occurring in the first week of life.
It has been established that investing and improving quality of care around the time of birth and the first week of life can result in significant reductions in neonatal and maternal mortality.
Intervention
The targets of the national newborn strategy and action plan are to increase the proportion of deliveries conducted by trained skilled birth attendants from 68 per cent in 2011 to 82 per cent in 2018.
It is also to increase the proportion of babies receiving the first postnatal visit within 48 hours from 56 per cent in 2011 to 90 per cent in 2018.
The strategy further seeks to increase the proportion of babies receiving the second postnatal visit by day seven of birth from 40 per cent in 2013 to, at least, 80 per cent by 2018.
A staff of RISE-Ghana explaining a point on maternal and neonatal health care practices to some residents of Kasena Nankana West District in the Upper East Region.
In the case of early initiation of breastfeeding, that is, within 30 minutes of birth, the national strategy intends to increase it from 46 per cent in 2011 to 80 per cent in 2018; and also increase exclusive breastfeeding at six months from 46 per cent in 2011 to 85 per cent in 2018.
The Mother and Baby Friendly Health Facility Initiative (MBFHI) outlined in the Ghana national newborn strategy and action plan, which is to ensure the provision of respectful, courteous, and supportive facility-based care for every mother and every baby, is perhaps, Ghana’s model for the proposed “Every Mother Every Newborn” (EMEN) QI model.
The key components of the MBFHI model include provision of respectful, courteous and supportive facility-based care for every mother and every baby, promotion of early and exclusive breastfeeding ensuring early initiation of breastfeeding, provision of basic essential newborn care including Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) at the hospital level, and promotion of maternal and newborn care during the postnatal period.
Collaboration
In an interview with the Daily Graphic on the need to prevent maternal and neonatal deaths in the country, particularly in the Upper East Region, the Executive Director of the Rural Initiative for Self-Empowerment (RISE-Ghana), an NGO, Mr Awal Ahmed Kariama, said husbands ought to be considered as key players in any intervention to reduce infant and maternal deaths.
He said RISE-Ghana has received funding and technical support from UNICEF and the Ghana Health Service and is complementing the effort of the Upper East Regional Health Directorate to improve healthcare services for infants, expectant mothers and mothers with newborns through the MBFHI project in the Kasena Nankana West District in the Upper East Region.
Beneficiaries
Aside the Kasena Nankana West District, the programme is also being implemented in the Bolgatanga Municipal, Bawku Municipal and Bongo Districts.
Mr Kariama said the programme was introduced to address the identified gaps in service delivery and cultural barriers contributing to neonatal and maternal deaths in the region.
He added that the emphasis would be centered mainly on effective community mobilization and community advocacy to increase demand for services and reduce maternal and neonatal deaths.
Fathers’ role
Touching on the need to make fathers part of the childbirth process, Mr Kariama explained that if fathers were made part of the childbirth process, it would help them to understand their role in helping their expectants wives to access healthcare services.
He said most fathers failed to assist their expectant wives, particularly accompanying them to health facilities for antenatal care because they did not see its importance and some communities frown and stigmatize the few bold men who do that.
Some men in the Kasena Nankana West District in the Upper East Region being educated on how they can contribute to improve maternal and neonatal healthcare delivery in their area.
However, he said, if fathers were made to know why they should accompany their wives to health facilities for both antenatal and postnatal care, it would translate into reducing the high maternal and infant mortality rate in the country.
According to Mr Kariama, childbirth ought to be the responsibility of both the mother and father and therefore every process to ensure the child is delivered and wined must be the responsibility of both the father and the mother.
He said, for instance, that if men accompanied their wives to health facilities, it would help them to decide on a convenient family planning method among others.
Culture
He expressed the worry that in some communities, cultural barriers prevented expectant mothers and new mothers from adhering to good practices.
Mr Kariama noted that some grandparents and mother-in-laws sometimes forced mothers to give water to their newborn babies, describing such practice as inimical to the reducing newborn deaths.
He expressed his gratitude to the UNICEF-Ghana and the Ghana Health Service through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for providing funding for the project.
Writer’s email: [email protected] / [email protected]
