ABSTRACT

Maternal mortality has been describe as the death of women while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy. Kutungare village under Igabi Local Government Area is not an exemption to the effect of maternal mortality as research shown that most of the pregnant women suffer from issues related to maternal mortality due to the lack of awareness and high level of illiteracy or exposure to the effect of maternal mortality. Some of the most peculiar problems facing the women in Kutungare which is located out sketch of Kaduna main city are ignorance, poverty, home delivery and inadequate maternal centres which are some of the factors that contribute to maternal death in Kutungare community. However, there is urgent intervention and need for the government to organize sensitization programmes on awareness of the effect of maternal mortality and also to rehabilitate the existing health facility like provision of electricity, deployment of more medical personnel to the community, provision of ambulance for emergency situations. Therefore the further researcher should collectively expand the knowledge on how to minimize the maternal mortality rate not only through this state but also to the nation and worldwide in general.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Maternal mortality, also known a maternal death, continues to be the major cause of death among women of reproductive age in many countries and remains a serious public health issue especially in developing countries (WHO 2007). As explained in Shah and Say (2007), a maternal death is defined as the death of a women while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes. Globally, the estimated number of maternal deaths worldwide in 2005 was 536,000 up from 529,000 in 2000. According to the WHO factsheet (2008) 1500 women die from pregnancy or pregnancy related complication every day. Most of these deaths occur in developing countries and most are avoidable of all the health statistics compiled by the WHO, the largest discrepancy between developed and developing countries occurred in maternal mortality. UJAH et al. (2005) noted that while 25 percent females of reproductive age lived in developed countries. The contributed only 1 percent of maternal deaths worldwide.

Nigeria has been mentioned by the United Nations as having one of the highest rates the top medical causes of maternal mortality in the world. Reducing high maternal mortality ration is not just a technical and medical challenge but largely a political one which requires the attention and commitment of political leaders. Mothers are the key to the provision of health services for children, she has been neglected and exploited by health service, traditionally to serve infants. As Nigeria is till passing through various stages of development many women still deliver at home without attending antenatal clinics, Kaduna State being part of Nigeria also many cases maternal mortality rate. This study is aimed at finding mortality rate occur due to obstetric hemorrhage. Other include infections following childbirth, unsafe abortion, eclampsia and obstructed labor. Experts agree that these causes are largely treatable and preventable. The root causes of high maternal mortality in Nigeria include weak development planning, poverty, illiteracy and low utilization of formal maternal health care services.

In recent years the international safe motherhood conference convened in Kenya raised global awareness of the devastating maternal mortality rates in developing nations and formally established the safe motherhood initiative. The goal was to reduce maternal mortality 50% unity the plight of the pregnant woman. Initially, donors, United Nation (UN) agencies and government focused of on 2 strategies to reduced maternal mortality: increasing antenatal care and training for traditional birth attendants.

Improving the health care system overall is undoubtedly a critical component to reducing maternal mortality and improving the general health of a nation. The current implementation of free health care to pregnant women and under five children seem to be yielding some positive results but Nigeria’s Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) however, is yet to reach the reduction rates as recommended.

1.1     STATE OF THE PROBLEM

In spite of all the policies, declarations and other efforts aimed at reducing maternal death across the globe, only modest gains in maternal mortality reduction appear to have been achieved in many countries in the past 20 years (Shah and Say, 2007).

In Nigerian, The Federal Ministry of Health had set year 2006 as the target year that maternal mortality would have been reduced by 50 percent. However, not only were these targets not achieved but also the maternal health situation in Nigeria is now which worse than in previous years (Ujah et al 2005).

Past efforts to reduce maternal mortality ratio in Nigeria were concentrated on making direct improvements to the health systems. These efforts have not involved enough resources to successfully reduce maternal mortality in the country.

1.2     AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The objective of this study is to:

·                    Bring together some of the risk factors mentioned in the past as responsible for high maternal mortality in Nigeria. These include whether the woman received antenatal care, whether delivery was assisted by a health professional, whether delivery took place in a health facility and the educational attainment of the woman, and income disturbing.

·                    Identify the factors that seem to have more effect than the others on maternal mortality in Nigeria.

·                    To ascertain the role of traditional birth attendant in the causes of maternal mortality.

·                    To identify possible solution to reducing maternal mortality.

·                    To identify the poor attitude relation to general public, community in relation to maternal mortality have to be investigated.

1.3     IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY

The importance of this research work is exclusively to emphasized on the attention of women of child bearing age through these means and also to let the work know that women are reproductive to our society in world and at large population.

1.4     SCOPES AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The study cover all the precautionary measures towards the effect of maternal mortality rate in Kutungare Igabi West Local Government area of Kaduna State, with the aims and objectives governing the research work to the effective undertaken by the researcher. The study will be delimited to the effect of maternal mortality rate of women of child bearing age between the age of 20 – 40 years in Kutungare Igabi West Local Government area of Kaduna State Nigeria.

1.5     RESEARCH QUESTION

·                    What are the possible ways in the prevention of maternal mortality rate among women of child bearing age.

·                    What are the causes of maternal mortality.

·                    How do you educate the female and community about the effect o maternal mortality.

·                    How do you identify the effect of maternal mortality.

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