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| Patience, teenage mother of quadruplets |
Over the weekend, the attention of the Director General of the CRS primary health care development agency Dr. BETTA EDU who was carrying out an intervention at a community in obanliku was drawn to a woman at sacred heart hospital, Obudu who had just been delivered of quadruplet (4 babies– 3 male 1 female). The said woman had two children already before the birth of the quadruplet.
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| Dr. Betta Edu checking the quadruplets layer inside and incubator machine |
The compassionate Dr. Betta Edu who is a lover of children was so excited to welcome them into the world. She congratulated the woman for attending her ANC clinics and delivering with a skilled birth attendant in a health facility. ” We are grateful to God for the gift of these beautiful babies. You are indeed our maternal health champion in this community because you attended all your Ante Natal Clinics, tested for HIV during pregnancy to help us prevent Mother to child transmission of HIV and you delivered at a health facility where complications identified were immediately taken care of to keep you and babies alive. Other women should emulate this”.
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| Dr. Betta on her speech to mothers over them accessing PHC regularly |
Betta, siezed the opportunity to advised the woman on the importance of attending a family-planning clinic either at a primary health facility or in the same hospital. She informed her on the various types of family planning and encouraged her to discuss same with her husband as soon as possible.
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| The quadruplet inside an incubator machine |
Family planning is the practice of controlling the number of children one has and the intervals between their births, particularly by means of contraception or voluntary sterilization.
Nigeria as a nation did not reduce maternal mortality (death of woman during pregnancy, labour, delivery or 42 days after delivery) at the end of Millennium Development Goals in 2015. The deaths rose from 545 deaths per 100, 000 live births to 576 deaths per 100,000 live birth. This high levels of death can be equated to the low uptake of family planning services in our communities. In Cross River State, the uptake of family planning services is as low as 13%.
“For us as a state to effectively reduce maternal mortality then we must reduce the number of unwanted and unplanned pregnancy. It almost a vicious cycle, having more children than you can cater for affects the economy and wellbeing of the family. Children are malnourished, easily prone to diseases, more hospital visits less care, their education might even be hampered and the easily resort to evil vices as a survival strategy. More still as the woman continues to have more children there is risk she might lose her life, leaving behind children without motherly love, supervision and direction”.
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| Mother of quadruplet talks about family planning after a successful caesarean section |
Family planning still remains a potent vaccine for maternal mortality. For the above mentioned woman, it was a great day as the DG showered her babies with gifts.
~Prince Charles, Personal Assistant to CRSPHCDA DG on Media
