State rolls out campaign to cut high maternal deaths
By George.Kebaso, February 28, 2024The Ministry of Health has announced plans to roll out antenatal care model seeking to reduce the alarmingly high maternal and newborn deaths across the country.
This follows a successful pilot of Group Antenatal Care (G-ANC) in at least 10 counties.
Acting Health Director General, Patrick Amoth yesterday said G-ANC is an important part of the ministry’s plans to save mothers and newborns.
While opening a three-day meeting dubbed: The Global Catalyzer on Group Antenatal bringing together more than 100 delegates from across the world, Dr Amoth said the ministry cannot ignore findings of study which showed that G-ANC quadrupled antenatal attendance.
The study was conducted in Kenya and Nigeria by the John Hopkins Affiliate, Jhpiego between October 2016 and January 2018.
“Quality antenatal care is among the interventions that can reduce these deaths; potential life-threatening complications are detected during antenatal care and managed or planned for; on time before delivery,” he said in Nairobi yesterday.
And with this evidence, he noted that Kenya became one of the countries that included G-ANC in the national guidelines in 2020, with counties like Machakos and Kisumu also embracing the model in their routine antenatal care.
“These two counties are already seeing a dramatic increase in ANC visits,” Dr Amoth noted.
In 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) listed Kenya and other 10 countries in Africa as having “very high” and “extremely high” maternal mortalities ranging from 500 to as high as over 1,000 deaths per 100,000 live births.
Sub-Saharan Africa still faces unacceptably high maternal mortality ratios.
“Mothers dying during childbirth is a public health crisis all over Africa Kenya’s maternal and newborn mortality is unacceptably high with the maternal mortality ratio at 355 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births,” he said. Data at the ministry shows that neonatal mortality rate is 21 per 1,000 live births.
And after experiencing success in areas of the country in reducing maternal mortality through providing antenatal care to groups of women as opposed to individuals, Kenya is hosting 130 health experts from all over the world in Nairobi this week to share lessons with other countries seeking to reduce maternal mortality.
“Kenya is thrilled to host the Global Catalyzer on Group Antenatal Care meeting which begins today and will run for three days and where the country will share its journey on Group ANC,” he said.
Group Antenatal Care is a technique of providing antenatal and prenatal care to women with pregnancies of the same age so they can learn, share, and experience pregnancy together. A group could have between eight to 15 mothers.
The Health ministry has been researching G-ANC since 2012, and the results showed that the number of newborns with low birth weight was lower in the health facilities that offered G-ANC.
The 2016 study showed that offering G-ANC increased the number of women attending antenatal care by up to 400 per cent, while 50 per cent made six or more antenatal care visits as opposed to 12 per cent of those who went to individual care.
The same study showed that 88 per cent of women in G-ANC attended four more antenatal care visits compared to 50 per cent in individual care.
Stephanie Suhowatsky, Public Health specialist and a lead author in the study described G-ANC as a pregnancy discussion group, but with real, in-person connection and accurate medical information.
“It is like routine prenatal care, childbirth class and group therapy, in one package that saves money and utilises fewer healthcare workers,” she said.
And with the demonstrated results, Dr Amoth said the ministry has also supported five counties to introduce G-ANC in their routine antenatal care over the past decade.
The most common causes of deaths among mothers and neonates — such as excessive bleeding or blood pressure induced by pregnancy— are often detected and managed during antenatal care.