Traditional Birth Attendant To The Rescue
Written by Bolanle Alebede Monday, 06 September 2010 15:14
Mama Korede has been in labor for three days, the whole compound is in disarray, confusion is written all over her husband face. After a futile argument about where to take her for delivery, she insists with the support of her mother- in law on going to the “ Agbomola “ (Traditional Birth Attendant TBA's) in the next village to spare her life and ensure the baby's safe delivery.
To cut the long story short as they say in the village, she was rushed down with the assistance of kind neighbors to the Agbomola, who gave her the necessary herbal treatments. She delivered the baby safely mother and baby is alive.
Whereas, Mama Korede story ended well, it is a different ball game for millions of other women who daily loose their lives or have still births due to the over zealousness of TBA'S who do not know when to seek for superior medical attention.
In most African communities, from Lagos, Accra or the crannies of Sierra Leone, TBA's are a cultural aspect of our societies, they are the first point of contact for pregnant women especially those from the low social-economic status. Other factors promoting easy access to TBA's are illiteracy and poor awareness of modern maternal health facilities. Most of these TBA 's however lack the requisite skills on current antenatal services, postnatal practice, nutrition, referrals and family planning or checking out for transmitted diseases especially between mother and unborn child.
As far as the World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned on this issue, the reductions of maternal and infant mortality are two key targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's). Each year, it is estimated that four million new born die before the first one-month and a similar number are still born.
In addition, over a million mothers die each year as a result of child bearing, with the vast majority of deaths occurring in what they call “under resourced setting”, WHO estimates about 43% of all live birth are attended to by TBA's (including relatives) in this under- resourced setting and in some rural areas, this proportion is much higher (80% in a Palestinian WHO study) imagine what a study of any African country will reveal.
Recently the Sierra Leone minister of Health and Sanitation called for a reorganization of the way women in Sierra Leone give birth with particular emphasis on the role of Traditional Birth Attendants. TBA's, in the country. Currently, one in eight women is at risk of dying while giving birth in the country.
The Sierra Leonia minister, Dr Soccoh Kabbia said that as part of his government's health strategy, they are trying to answer the question of “why do women die” 10-15% of all birth in the country have serious complications or delay in getting these complicated issues to a qualified medical practitioner which causes numerous preventable deaths. Of particular note is when TBA's cannot handle post- partium hemorrhaging or any other unpredictable complications during delivery.
Nigeria used to have a handbook for training the TBA's in the days of the late erudite Minister for Health Prof. Olikoye Ransome Kuti, which has gone moribund now. Except for the Lagos State Traditional Medicine board that has been giving regular training programs for TBA's in the state, other minimum training across the country is mostly facilitated through foreign NGO's support.
In the village, we know it will be difficult to abolish or stop TBA's practice, so therefore, we beg for and encourage African governments to start organizing adequate and qualitative training for them in their health care systems.
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