Pregnancy and birthing must be safe
The main entrance to Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi. A woman delivered by the roadside on September13 after she was denied entry into the facility.
What you need to know:
- Society ought to sit up and agree once and for all on how our expectant mothers should be treated.
Prenatal care is often equally horrible, especially among the poor rural folk and slum dwellers.
It is so painful that mothers, in their course of bringing forth life, should be subjected to deathly conditions.
The greatest fear among expectant mothers is the delivery stage. Yet this ought to be a moment of relief, considering the afflictions they have endured for nine months.
Recently, a woman was blocked at the Pumwani Maternity Hospital gate, where she would deliver her baby. But even in maternity wards, many women deliver unattended. Prenatal care is often equally horrible, especially among the poor rural folk and slum dwellers.
A health attendant will shout at a mother, demanding details such as the name of the father-to-be and the number of her previous births and even wondering aloud why the patient conceives frequently.
That is why many more women prefer home-based care and delivery under traditional birth attendants, only turning up in hospitals belatedly when complications arise.
Experienced mistreatment
A 2019 study in the United States, as reported in the Reproductive Health Journal, revealed that 17.3 per cent of expectant women experienced some form of mistreatment in the hands of health workers.
The latter scolded, shouted at, ignored, refused requests for help or delayed responding to patients. Also reported were physical abuse, sharing of patient information without consent and imposition of unconsented treatment.
The findings are not unique to the US; they reflect the terrorism visited upon expectant mothers locally. The problem is that we seem to have normalised this savage order. It is so painful that mothers, in their course of bringing forth life, should be subjected to deathly conditions.
Society ought to sit up and agree once and for all on how our expectant mothers should be treated. Instructively, the number of women avoiding to conceive for fear of the consequences is quietly rising. This has led to family breakups and instances of infant theft.
Nobody should suffer or die while giving life.
