AFRICA -
Nairobi (Agenzia Fides) - The annual number of stillbirths in the whole world is twice the number of people who die from diseases associated with HIV. According to the weekly science magazine The Lancet, about 2.64 million fetuses die after the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy, mainly in low and middle income countries. The main causes are birth complications
maternal infections during pregnancy, disorders such as hypertension and diabetes, fetal growth restriction and congenital anomalies. According to experts, more attention to prenatal care would be sufficient to deal with this social plague.
In countries like Kenya, health facilities are overcrowded. At Madiany Hospital in the District of Rarieda , western province of Nyanza, midwives and doctors face stillbirths everyday; health workers are overwhelmed by the expectant mothers all over the district, even if the women who go to hospital for treatment are only a few. The Nyanza health centers are few and far apart from one another, and so many women lose their babies during the long journey from home to the hospital, while others die because their mothers choose to give birth at home. More than half of all kenyiote women give birth without the help of trained medical staff.
According to the magazine The Lancet, about 1.2 million stillbirths occur during labor. "In Uganda, only 42% of wom
en receive adequate care at delivery”, reports the national coordinator of The White Ribbon Alliance, an international Ong that deals with maternal health. We need specific assistance at birth and emergency obstetric care, basic information and access to health services for users as well as knowledge, resources and professionals in the field. Other measures include the provision of supplements of folic acid, the distribution of mosquito nets treated with insecticides in endemic areas for malaria and the regular monitoring of syphilis during prenatal checkups. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 04/15/2011)
