Strong commitment needed to reduce maternal deaths-IPPF

The International Planned Parenthood Federation has called for strong commitments in reducing the number of women dying while giving birth in Africa.

The Federation notes that an alarmingly 90 percent of women who die each year while giving birth are from Africa.
The Federation says the high number of women dying in child birth has serious social and economic ramification and slows down progress in attaining MDG number 5 which seeks to reduce maternal mortality rate by 75% by 2015.

This is according to a statement read on behalf of the Federation Regional Office by Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia Board Chairperson Dr. Mary Zulu during the handover of a maternity waiting room at Mukolwe Health Post in Masaiti District yesterday.

“We need strong commitments to addressing this problem of mothers losing lives whilst giving life. The success of this project in Masaiti goes to show what we could achieve if we worked together,” Dr Zulu said.

The Mukolwe maternity waiting room which is the second to be set up in Masaiti after the Fiwale centre was constructed with support from the Japanese Organisation for International Cooperation in Family Planning and is meant to encourage facility based deliveries in the area.

The maternity waiting rooms are part of the Community Safe Motherhood Project in Zambia which was implemented by PPAZ from January 2011 to end of 2013 with support from Japanese Organisation for International Cooperation in Family Planning.

A research conducted in the area showed that 287 pregnant women utilized the maternity waiting room in 2012.

And Japanese Organisation for International Cooperation in Family Planning Chairperson Sumie Ishii emphasized the role of the Safe Motherhood Action Groups in ensuring that expectant mothers deliver at health facilities.

“As Japanese people, we are happy to contribute to reducing the number of women dying in childbirth by ensuring that they delivered at health facilities,” she said.

“The handover of this infrastructure does not mean the end of this battle, with the help of the SMAG members, we have to go out and encourage our women to come and stay in the waiting room as they await labour.”

And Officiating at the ceremony, Masaiti District Commissioner Uli Mwambana called on men to play an active role in family planning.

“My message to the men of Mukolwe village is that, the fact that the Japanese have given us this facility does not mean that you now go on rampage impregnating our women. We have to plant our families. This thing of Lamba Bull, Lamba Bull should come to an end,” Mr Mwambana said.

He also called on married couples to use condoms as a family planning tool.

Zambia has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world with 591 women losing their lives out of every 100,000 live births.