Nine months pregnant Emily Richard

Pregnant mothers in Migori county have been urged to give birth in hospitals to avoid high mortality rates.
Mothers have been challenged to give birth in hospitals and avoid tradition midwives as a means of seeking qualified medics services to reduce death during delivery.

Maternal and Infant Survival Health Advancement Project (Maisha) says less than 50 percent of women in Migori County deliver in health facilities which puts the live of the mother and the child at risk.

“Mothers should utilise government health facilities available in the county during birth to increase their chance of survival and that of infants,” Winnie Koima, the Maisha project coordinator said.

She added: “Migori county still has a low intake of maternal health services, we need to reverse this trend.”
The project coordinator said they have stepped up training of health workers on how to handle complications related to pregnancy and child birth.

“There have been increased births in the health facility since this project was launched in 2012,” she said.
The organisation has supported the Migori level four hospital, Ogwedhi, Ondong, Nyamaranga and God Kwero health centres in Suna West and Suna East sub-counties.

“We have trained students at local Kenya Medical Training College, medics and donated equipment worth millions of shillings to the hospital for training on emergency maternal deliveries and new born care,” she said.

Henry Ombija Migori KMTC college principal said Maisha has boosted skills of their students on maternal and child care to admirable level.

Meanwhile Elsa Alfred, a nurse at Senye Clinic in Muhuru Bay region said Migori stakeholders should take up the initiative.

“Government data shows that a woman is Migori county is expected to have five children in her life, with a fertility of 5.3 per cent against the national 3.9 per cent this shows more risk,” she said.

“Add this figure to official government data that indicates that 56.1 per cent of sexually mature Migori women not using any form of contraceptive and only 36.9 per of children being fully immunized and you see we are walking time bomb,” Alfred said.

The figures are from a research carried out by National Council for Population and Development (NCPD) which also shows the maternity death standing at 67.3 per cent.

But two pregnant women who spoke to Migori News insisted on the benefit of traditional midwives despite availability of hospitals.

Lydia Anyango, a mother of a bouncing five month daughter based at Oruba estate within Migori town, said she got help from a traditional midwife commonly called ‘Nyamrerwa’ when her date was long overdue.

“I travelled all the way to my home town in Kamejji to seek help from a midwife and I gave birth at the hospital on the same day,” she said.

Emily Richard from Nyamtiro centre, Kuria East, said she is due to give birth at any time and sought help from a midwife after contemporary medicine failed.

“I was given medicine to ease abdominal pain and heaviness in my stomach. I was also given others to boost my appetite. They sailed until I got medicine from a nyamrerwa,” she said.

The two said that even though they prefer to give birth in hospitals, they found health from traditional midwives.