Traditional birth attendants prioritise antenatal care
Abiba Nafisa, 68, a traditional birth attendant (TBA) at Gaa, a community in the Gushegu District in the Northern Region, has resolved not to provide any assistance to any expectant mother who defaults or fails to seek antenatal care in health facilities.
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She is not deliberately hesitating to take deliveries, the work she had practised for about three decades, but Nafisa is helping to change an accepted practice of deliveries by TBA’s in the area to reduce post-natal complications, which sometimes result in death.
Her refusal is serving as a whip to recalcitrant pregnant women who do not visit health facilities to access antenatal care.
“For now, I prefer women delivering at the health facilities so that in case there are complications, such as bleeding, they will be handled by doctors. I will only deliver on condition that the case is unexpected or the woman is not close to any health facility,” she said.
Ironically, Nafisa is not the only TBA who has taken such a decision; about 10 others in both Karaga and Gushegu districts have resolved to follow the same rule.
Capacity building
Due to the various capacity-building programmes, with the support of Star-Ghana’s “Live Births: Smiling Mothers” project being championed by the Northern Sector Action on Awareness (NORSAAC) in 24 communities in four districts in the region, they had reckoned that at a point in time, some expectant mothers who were in labour lost their lives through excessive bleeding which they could not control.
The Gushegu District Director of Health, Alhaji Abdul Rahman Yakubu, told the GNA that TBA’s were supporting the efforts of the directorate towards reducing maternal deaths by accompanying expectant mothers to health facilities.
“We have instituted a gift package where any TBA who brings a pregnant woman to deliver at the health facility is rewarded with a bar of key soap and money, plus the transportation cost of her journey to and from the facility,” he said.
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He said women who delivered at the health facility were also given free baby clothing to motivate them and also encourage other women to emulate them by attending antenatal.
For the first time in five years, the Gushegu District Health Directorate recorded a reduced maternal death rate from seven in 2011 and 2012 to four in 2013 and institutional deliveries increased in 2013.
New Approach by NORSAAC
The Star-Ghana project has an overall goal of increasing access by pregnant women to antenatal, facility-based and post-natal care services in Gushegu, Karaga, Tolon and Sagnerigu districts by 35 per cent.
The Executive Director of NORSAAC, Mr Allhassan M. Awal, said the Star-Ghana initiative sought not only to empower women groups to increase facility-based delivery and post-natal services in communities but to also strengthen community structures to improve maternal health outcomes and sustain partnerships between the district assembly, Ghana Health Service and community health teams.
He said key strategies adopted by the project included Male Maternal Champions (MMC), Community Health Teams (CHTs) and Pregnancy Support Groups (PSGs), and that the measures played a critical role in influencing services, facility delivery and postnatal services to ensure that the goals of the project was achieved.
Breaking the myth
Alhaji Yakubu confirmed that the directorate, together with its partners, especially NORSAAC, is gradually breaking the myth among men that pregnancy and childbearing are the sole responsibility of women.
“We tried to constantly orient men who are responsible fathers and let them know that responsibility is when you impregnate a woman and support her throughout the pregnancy till child training,” he said.
Alhaji Yakubu expressed joy that the pregnancy school established in many communities in the district where couples were being educated and guided to develop a birth plan regarding the health facility a woman would like to deliver was also yielding tremendous results.
“By this plan, they can suggest by what means the woman will be transported to the health facility when she is due for delivery. To prevent delays and complications, we advise pregnant women living in far communities to live close to town,” he said.
Stakeholders in the health sector have identified a lot of challenges, including poor infrastructure, inadequate personnel and negative attitudes that call for urgent attention.
The writer is with the GNA