Now let's look at the causes of infant mortality:
Minister of Public Health pledges to work on the issue of underage pregnancies and on increasing breastfeeding rates.
Santo Domingo - The Dominican Republic UNICEF office presented the 2009 State of the World’s Children report at an event headed by the Minister of Public Health (SESPAS) Dr. Bautista Rojas G?mez, United Nations System Resident Coordinator, Valerie Juliand, and the coordinator of the Catholic Church’s Mother and Child Pastoral Service, Father Jos? Navarro.Representatives of the Pan-American Health Office, USAID and the ILO also took part.
During the presentation of the report, UNICEF representative Francoise Gruloos-Ackermans emphasised that maternal and neonatal mortality is one of the country’s main challenges that has to be tackled as a priority, echoing recent declarations by the President of the Dominican Republic. She stated that preventing underage pregnancies was a serious problem that requires creativity, a joint effort, and careful analysis of successful experiences.
She also stressed that mother and newborn health and survival are intrinsically linked, and that many of the same interventions that save the lives of mothers will also benefit their newborn babies. Across the world, regions with high maternal mortality rates also register high neonatal mortality rates.
Quoting the report, which this year is devoted to Maternal and Neonatal Health, she said that women from the world’s less developed countries are 300 times more likely to die during childbirth or due to pregnancy-related complications, while children born in developing countries are 14 times more likely to die in the first month of life compared to children in industrialised countries.
Referring to maternal and infant mortality rates, the UNICEF Representative stated that “we cannot remain indifferent, especially as most of these deaths can be prevented”, even with simple measures like improving hygiene.
Commenting on the statistics that place the Dominican Republic among the countries with high maternal mortality rates, Minister of Health Bautista Rojas accepted that “there are problems that quality (in medical care), and this is what we have to improve”, while stressing that access to health services coverage was high.
“Initially, health providers attribute this quality problem to a lack of equipment, but the birth centres are equipped with machinery”, declared Rojas, referring to the causes of the high maternal and infant mortality rates. The minister emphasised the need for “the quality (of healthcare) to be taken on by the doctor from the pregnancy, birth and afterwards”.
In the Dominican Republic, out of 127 maternal deaths for each 100,000 live births, 27% occur as a result of pre-eclampsia, 21% due to post-natal complications, 12% due to haemorrhages, and a certain percentage as a result of abortions, as well as other causes, according to figures presented by Marisol Pe?a of the Health Ministry’s Epidemiology Department.
In most of these cases, deaths occur in mothers aged between 20 and 29 and 10 and 19, according to the expert. Almost 90% of maternal deaths take place in the country’s Eastern Region and in the frontier area, in public hospitals, and a low proportion occur at private clinics and victims’ homes.
A presentation followed on the work of the Mother and Child Pastoral Service, which works in the context of the efforts to reduce mother and child mortality, especially in the neo-natal period, as a community actor in poor neighbourhoods, using the example of Pastoral de la Crianza in Brazil, with a focus on a care continuum for mothers, newborn babies and children.
Father Jos? Navarro, director of the Pastoral Service, explained that “we are running an educational process with the mothers in their communities, seeking among other objectives to improve the timely use of health services and following the guidance and prescribed treatments at the health centres so that they are put into practice in people’s homes”.
The main results that have emerged about the impact of the Mother and Child Pastoral Programme include: A trend towards 46% reduction in chronic malnutrition, 48% reduction in risk of obesity, 39% reduction in rate of moderate or severe anaemia, three times higher exclusive breastfeeding rate until the age of six months and a 48% increase in the number of children who complete their first year vaccination schedule.
The launch ceremony was attended by a group of beneficiary mothers with their babies and volunteer advisers who work in the Mother and Child Pastoral Service programme, which runs in poor neighbourhoods of Santo Domingo and other cities in the Dominican Republic.
UNICEF Dominican Republic - Health - Minister of Public Health pledges to work on the issue of underage pregnancies and on increasing breastfeeding rates.