The Saif Advocacy Foundation has raised concerns over high rate of maternal and neonatal deaths in Gombe State, attributing the issue to the lack of access to antenatal care for pregnant women.
Speaking on Wednesday Programme Officer of Saif Advocacy Foundation Farida Mohammed, harped on the need for men to support their wives benefit from ANC.
Mohammed who spoke during a media parley on community engagement on maternal newborn health and sexual reproductive health, funded by Clinton Health Access Initiative called for collaboration between religious and traditional leaders towards spreading the importance.
She said, “It’s unfortunate the project is just for three months and this particular engagement is supposed to happen more than three times together to discuss a lot of issues and try to support these issues in our own context.
“Access to ANC will go a long way in reducing child and maternal mortality for our own engagement we have tried to engage traditional and religious leaders at the community level.”
Continuing she added, “Early ANC tackles a lot of challenges before delivery and it’s a concern to Gombe State because looking at the indices, the scorecard for the State we have a lot of red in early ANC as well as women accessing ANC it’s really a concern in Gombe State.”
On his part Executive Director of Saif Advocacy Foundation Alhassan Yahya, noted that women in the state are not accessing ANC as expected.
He added, “Women are expected to go to antenatal before delivery but the number accessing such service is not encouraging. If truly we want to reduce maternal mortality that means we need to improve ANC. Where it’s declining daily it shows there is serious issue.”
While urging for media support Yahaya noted, “It’s our hope and prayer that after engaging various stakeholders at the community level we hope to see changes.”
Also, State representative of Clinton Health Access Initiative, Saudatu Ahmad, lauded the efforts of the collaboration, urging for adequate support in mitigating issues affecting children and mothers.
