Poor care for newborns turns Kenya into country of grieving mothers

Kenya has one of the highest number of heartbroken mothers in the world who lose their new born babies for simple medical reasons.

Some of the women, more than 40,000 annually according to the World Health Organisation, are in pain because their babies could not be provided with enough warmth or simple hygienic precautions were not taken during their first four weeks of life.

Now Kenya is ranked among the top 20 countries out of 193 with the highest number of deaths in children below the age of four weeks.

“These babies should not be dying when there are proven, cost-effective interventions to prevent the leading causes of newborn deaths,” says Dr Joy Lawn of Save the Children.

In what is described as the most comprehensive newborn death estimates to date, covering the last 20 years and in all the 193 WHO member states, East Africa scores very poorly.

While Kenya, the regional economic powerhouse and placed 13th from the worst 20 could claim an edge over its neighbours, they all fall in same category at the tail. Uganda 12th, Sudan 11th and Tanzania 10th.

The worst performers globally according to the study published last week, include India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China and the Democratic Republic of Congo in that order.

During his public speeches in the recent past, President Kibaki has praised Kenyans’ effort in reducing the mortality rate of children under the age of five by about 40 per cent in the past five years. (READ: Kibaki: Govt to prioritise health delivery)

This, he said, had largely been achieved through increased immunisation and use of insecticide-treated bed nets to control malaria.

While the WHO report acknowledges this, it says not enough attention has been given to babies under 28 days who are in most cases killed by treatable infections, lack of breast feeding, unhygienic birth conditions and breathing problems.

The new report is a reflection of a national audit carried out by the Medical Services and Public Health ministries and recorded in the 2010 Kenya Service Provision Assessment (KSPA).

Too sick to care

The audit released in May concluded that many health facilities in Kenya and especially in the public sector were “too sick to care for newborns”.

The KSPA researchers observed 548 live births during the study period and in 40 per cent of the facilities newborns were not being dried and wrapped as recommended.

Less than a half of all health facilities in the country offer the three most basic health care requirements for newborns.

These include, drying and wrapping the newborn, tying and cutting the umbilical cord and helping the mother start breast feeding.

The study also found infection control measures to be highly inadequate with soap and running water as the most commonly missing items in facilities caring for newborn babies.

“Without these, facilities will never be able to fully prevent infection or provide top quality care,” says the 500-page report.

But even for older children the facilities were found to offer little relief. For example, although it is a requirement that sick children be checked for three major medical danger signs, this was found to happen in only one-tenth of the patients.

According to the government recommended treatment strategy called Integrated Management of Childhood Illness such children should be checked for the ability to eat or drink anything, vomiting or are having convulsions.

Only about one-third of children with respiratory illness, for example, had their respiratory rate checked, as recommended.