Yesterday we woke up to the news that Chisom Anekwe (nee Okereke), a young mother of 2 had died while trying to bring her 3rd child into the world.
Family members and friends reported that on April 30th 2017, Chisom died under questionable circumstances at one Magodo Specialist Hospital in Lagos.
Reports from family members indicate that Chisom was admitted, four days before she went into labour in the same hospital she had delivered her other children. It is reported that while at the hospital, no one attended to her and she was left for hours in labour, until her husband created a scene, which eventually caused the doctors to go to her ward and on inspection they found out that the baby had struggled and died.
The husband requested that a Caeserean Section be done to remove the dead baby and while he went to donate blood for the procedure, he found out that the doctors had induced his wife and delivered the dead baby without his consent. It is reported that her placenta got ruptured in the process and it wasn't until the husband noticed the swelling in her stomach, that doctors offered to do surgery. However before this procedure could happen Chisom died.
Chisom's story is similar to many stories of women dying all over Nigeria. In March 2017, another young woman Chiamaka Glory, 24, died after a botched Caeserean Section at Medical Art Center (MART) in Lagos.
Stories of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth in Nigeria is not new to us, after each high profile death, a lot is said in the news and media and sadly not much is done about it, until the next incident.
We are certain that on the same day Chisom Anekwe died, hundreds of other women around the country also died from preventable causes of maternal mortality. Maternal mortality remains very high in Nigeria and a report by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) indicated that Nigeria loses about 145 women of childbearing age every day, during pregnancies, from causes that could have been prevented.
The most frequent causes of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth are postpartum bleeding (15%), complications from unsafe abortion (15%), hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (10%), postpartum infections (8%), and obstructed labour (6%).
Other causes include blood clots (3%) and pre-existing conditions (28%).
Indirect causes are malaria, anaemia, HIV/AIDS, and cardiovascular disease, all of which may complicate pregnancy or be aggravated by it.
We also need to take note of the most important fact about maternal deaths from complications: most complications cannot be predicted and prevented. Any pregnant woman can develop complications at any time during pregnancy, at delivery, or in the postpartum period. This means that all pregnant women are at risk.
This is why pregnant women are adviced to have skilled birth attendants at birth. A skilled birth attendant is a midwife, physician, obstetrician, nurse, or other health care professional who provides basic and emergency health care services to women and their newborns during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period.
Sadly not every Nigerian woman has access to or uses a skilled birth attendant during labour and delivery. Not enough is being done by the government about this issue, there are not enough health workers, hospitals are underequipped, some parts of the country don't even have quality facilities where women can have their babies.
Prof. Mahmoud Fathalla, past president of the International Federation of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is reported to have said:
“Women are not dying of diseases we can’t treat… They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving.”
Has the Nigerian society decided that our lives are worth saving? Why are women still dying during childbirth?
Chisom had access to good healthcare, more than women in rural areas or women living in poverty are subject to, and yet she became another statistic. Her poor children are now left to grow up without their mother and her husband is left without the love of his life.
How long do we have to go on like this until we decide that enough is enough?