Source: Business Daily Africa
A friend tells of a rather sad story of him being in the rural part of Kenya and coming across a pregnant woman on a wheelbarrow being rushed to a clinic.

She was hoping to have a normal home delivery but complications changed the direction of her fate.

In Kibera, Nairobi, Fridah Enane who runs Frepals Clinic says she delivers between seven to 15 babies a day. However, if complications arise, the mothers are put in the back of a pick-up truck and rushed to a clinic.

Such pictures might be hard for us to conjure in our minds, yet they lend credence to the United Nations study which reveals that 60 per cent of mothers in Sub-Saharan Africa give birth without a health worker present.

This woman on a wheelbarrow or a pick-up truck is sadly the existence of many women in Kenya.

Their birth complications consequently lead to death making these women part of the statistics that are the Kenyan maternal mortality rate.

Women and girls die

These statistics indicate that about 14,700 women and girls die each year from pregnancy related complications.

The global average is about half of that. And for every 1,000 children born, about 52 die, a sad statistic that has Kenya ranked number 43 globally.

Maternal deaths are on the rise and continue to be the top killer of women in Kenya.

The necessity of safe motherhood services everywhere is key because maternal health goes beyond complications at childbirth.

It includes the unmentionable, seldom discussed obstetric fistula, which accounts for eight per cent of maternal deaths globally.

There is also Post-Partum Haemorrhaging, which is responsible for 25 per cent of maternal deaths in Kenya and occurs in over 55 per cent of women who do not deliver in hospitals.

Research draws an obvious co-relation between poverty and maternal deaths. From the start of a woman’s pregnancy, lack of money means lack of proper nutrition and access to basic healthcare.

This of course leaves them vulnerable to preventable diseases, which can eventually lead to them having birthing difficulties.