By Thomas Adetiloye
Anyone who has ever been hungry would know that food is a huge incentive. I don’t mean the sort of hunger whereby you know how or when the next meal would come and are just a bit peckish. I’m referring to when one does not have a clue to where or how the next meal is going to come.
In Nigeria, it is no brainer that a lot of people go hungry as a matter of routine. According to a May 2020 report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 40% of Nigerians or 82.9 million Nigerians live in poverty. By the NBS translation, they live on less than N137,430 a year. For those in this category, anything to fill the tummy would do.
Hence, it was with joy that one read that the Lagos State government began a pilot of giving weekly food packs to indigent pregnant women. According to a report titled, ‘Govt supports pregnant women with food packs’ and published in The Punch of Wednesday, July 29, the initiative was flagged off on Tuesday, July 28 by the wife of the Lagos Sate governor, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, at the Igbogbo/Baiyeku Local Council Development Area (LCDA). Tagged Mother, Infant and Child (MICH), it is to encourage pregnant women to attend the state healthcare facilities for prenatal care. The 11 local government and LCDAs included in the pilot are – Ikeja, Badagry, Epe, Ikorodu, Agege, Lagos-Island, Eti-Osa, Alimosho, Shomolu, Kosofe and Ibeju.
“This MICH, in the short-term, will reduce the incidence of abysmally low attendance of expectant mothers at the state government’s primary and secondary health facilities for their prenatal clinics occasioned by the economic hardship in the society,” said Dr. Sanwo-Olu, who was represented by Mrs Funmi Omotosho.
“The social, health and economic benefits of the programme are enormous. The food pack, which will be given to expectant mothers during their weekly prenatal visits, will contain the essential food and vitamins needed for the expectant mothers’ well-being and apt development of the baby’s brain, even from the womb.
“This will not only encourage attendance of the indigent pregnant women at our primary health facilities, but will enhance delivery of healthy babies with well-developed brains as well as reduce neonatal, infant and maternal mortality among the target group.”
In another report published by PM News, it was stated that the food packs contain recommended daily nutritional composition of protein; carbohydrate; lactose; milk fat; fibre; vitamins A, C, D3, E, B1, B2, B6, B12, calcium and folic acid. While families with a first pregnancy can enjoy this programme twice within three years, those already with two or more children can only enjoy the benefit once. Aside the food packs, beneficiaries would also enjoy follow-up through home visits by health workers and medical consultants.
The Special Adviser to Governor Sanwo-Olu on Civic Engagement, Princess Aderemi Adebowale, said that the MICH programme “is a component of the ‘Womb to School’ initiative which is a basket of social services initiated by the Office of Civic Engagement with the aim of supporting development of socially responsible citizens from the womb through infancy, childhood, youth into adulthood.”
The programme flagged off with 2, 200 indigent pregnant women, but Adebowale said that at full launch, the state government targets 5,000 indigent pregnant women selected by doctors and specialists in each primary health care centres in Lagos.
In Nigeria, maternal mortality is high. According to a 2019 report by the World Health Organization (WHO), Nigeria is “where nearly 20% of all global maternal deaths happen. Between 2005 and 2015, it is estimated that over 600,000 maternal deaths and no less than 900,000 maternal near-miss cases occurred in the country.
“In 2015, Nigeria’s estimated maternal mortality ratio was over 800 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, with approximately 58,000 maternal deaths during that year. By comparison, the total number of maternal deaths in 2015 in the 46 most developed countries was 1700, resulting in a maternal mortality ratio of 12 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. In fact, a Nigerian woman has a one in 22 lifetime risk of dying during pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum/post-abortion; whereas in the most developed countries, the lifetime risk is one in 4900.”
Some years ago, a friend had narrated how she saw expectant mothers being pampered at a pre-natal clinic in the US. They got not only sterling care, but incentives such as taxi rides, provisions, including food for mother and child(ren) as well as diapers. Some other countries that also ensure care of its pregnant women include Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Germany. While Nigeria is still far from such level of care, maternal and natal care should begin to command premium attention and funds from appropriate authority. And governments across board and at all levels must try harder at achieving that.
Last year, former Ondo State governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, advocated for free healthcare services to all pregnant women in Nigeria to reduce the rate of maternal mortality. He said this while delivering a paper titled, ‘Sustainable Strategies to Reduce Maternal Mortality in Nigeria: My Experience’, at the Seventh Kola Olafimihan College of Health Sciences Endowed Lecture of the University of Ilorin, Kwara State.
“A society that did not recognise the vulnerability of a pregnant woman and does not embrace any ameliorative process is guilty of some form of violence against women,” Mimiko, who is a medical practitioner, said. He also revealed that a 2012 confidential enquiry into maternal deaths in Ondo State (CEMDOS) report showed that over 90 per cent of maternal deaths were linked to mismanagement or delayed referrals by unskilled faith-based or traditional birth attendants.
I commend the Lagos State administration led by Babajide Sanwo-Olu for devising an incentive to attract more pregnant women to access quality healthcare. But I am not really surprised at Lagos’ move. In the country, it usually leads the good example. Its female workers are entitled to six months maternity leave, longer than three months still accorded to many female employees in the country.
But aside this current programme, Lagos can look into other initiatives to ensure food security among its residents. Just as it remembered the poor during the Covid-19 lockdown, the government should realise that vulnerable people in the state are still there. For instance, can a register be opened so that the state designs a system to allocate food to them? Also, by the time schools in the state eventually resume, can the state government look into how it can use school feeding to encourage school attendance? As the Nigerian state with the most population, several hiccups will present against these ideas, chief amongst which will be finance. But I believe Lagos has a strong will and can-do spirit. And it can do anything it sets it mind to. After all, isn’t it the Centre of Excellence?
Anyway, I pray the MICH programme becomes standard, extending beyond its pilot phase. It is a great move towards reducing maternal mortality as well as promoting babies’ health. And a worthy programme worthy of emulation by other states and even the federal government.
- Adetiloye writes from Lagos.
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