Maternal Mortality Rates Still High

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

Rosemary Mirondo

7 June 2011

Dar Es Salaam — The government has passed that more efforts are still required to reduce maternal and child mortality rates which are still high.

While the government’s efforts to combat malaria have relatively paid off, it reveals that its performance in maternal and child deaths were still a big problem.

The minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Haji Mponda said that experts need to take the matter as a major challenge worth including in their research so as to come up with what should be done to improve the situation.

According to him, if researchers and scientists find out reasons why the deaths were still high, the country might succeed in putting in place intervention measures which would help to bring the rate down.

He noted that the government had secured $40 billion from donors to be used in addressing the problem.

Reports say the total fertility rate in Tanzania has declined in recent years. At the current rate of 5.4 children per woman, the average Tanzanian mother will have given birth to between 5 and 6 children by the end of her lifetime.

However, these rates differ widely within Tanzania with ranges from 3.9 in the Eastern regions to 7.1 in the Western zone. Just as striking is the variations based on education levels of the mother, whereby women with secondary or higher education have on average of fewer children than women with no education.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative for Tanzania, Dr Julitta Onabanjo, said about 94 per cent of women were receiving antenatal care (ANC) from a health professional at least once during their pregnancy, according to the newly released 2010 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS).

“More births are taking place in health facilities and are assisted by health professionals with proper equipments, medicines and supplies and this has helped to reduce the occurrence and severity of obstetric and new born complications,” said Dr. Julitta Onabanjo.

Despite the improvements in areas of maternal health, family planning and child mortality, Tanzania’s population is still increasing rapidly.

According to the population projections made by the National Bureau of Statistics, Tanzania’s current population is 44.5 million growing at an annual rate of 2.9 per cent, almost 1.3 million people per year.

As the world population is projected to reach 7 billion by October this year, and with the Tanzania Population and Housing Census slated to take place in August 2012, much more needs to be done to provide safe and effective family planning to individuals and couples who want to plan their families.

Dr Onabanjo, said while there has been an overall improvement in the care for women during pregnancy and child birth since the last 2004-2005 TDHS, still the recent TDHS showed that only 43 per cent of pregnant women received the recommended four ANC visits, and only 15 per cent received their first ANC visit during the first three months of pregnancy.

Compared with the proportions observed in the 2004-2005 TDHS, there is a slight increase in facility deliveries (47 per cent to 50 per cent) and decrease in home deliveries (53 per cent to 48 per cent) and important post natal checkups are still very low (31 per cent) examined within two days of delivery, as recommended.

Meanwhile Tanzanian children are still struggling with frequent illness and poor health. Four per cent of children under-5 years showed symptoms of acute respiratory infection, 23 per cent had fever and 15 per cent had diarrhea according to the survey.

There is urgent need to increase funding for sexual and reproductive health programs including family planning.

“We must prevent stock-outs in contraceptives and ensure adequate equipments, medicines and supplies that are vital for safe motherhood including emergency obstetric care,” commented Dr. Onabanjo.

Dr. Onabanjo added that, “the release of this survey has come at the opportune moment, as the government is about to embark on its 2011/2012 budget discussions and allocations.

UNFPA and other UN partners delivering as One UN urge the government to allocate more resources to health so that we get closer to meeting the WHO recommended $40 per capita and the 15 percent Abuja target for health, and so that reproductive health interventions including family planning are fully funded. Women and men must be able to exercise their right to health including to determine the number and spacing of their children.”

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