Maternal and infant mortality rates still high

Health officials in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, said on Thursday that although falling in some areas, maternal and child mortality rates for the former Soviet republic of 5.1 million were still unacceptably high, especially in rural parts of the country. “In the past, we considered the foetus as a living organism from 28 weeks, now we consider it alive from 22 weeks, according to World Heath Organization (WHO) criteria. So it looks like an increase in the rate of infant mortality. However, [despite this] the rate of infant and maternal mortality is still high in rural areas,” Roza Amiraeva, head gynecologist at the health ministry, said. Kyrgyzstan began using WHO critera for determining maternal and infant mortality figures in 2004. Government statistics for 2002 show that 52 infants in 1,000 die before, during, or just after birth and the maternal mortality rate for the same year was 110 per 100,000 women. The improvement of maternal health worldwide is one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) committed to by the international community in 2000. To achieve this, health officials recommend an increase in the quality of health care for pregnant women, in the form of improved access to ante-natal care, a higher number of births attended by skilled medical personnel and better and more affordable medical facilities. There have been successes in boosting maternal health in Kyrgyzstan. “The number of maternal mortality cases has started to decrease slowly because there has been better access to medical services and information on reproductive health issues in recent years,” Cholpon Asanbaeva, senior adviser with the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) reproductive health programme in the republic, said. “We got equipment from UNFPA and were able to open a small maternity hospital, though during the winter it is still cold inside. Before, we had to go 35 km to get to the central district hospital,” Bahtiguil Chotorova, a midwife, said in Tasma village in the eastern province of Isyk-Kul. The village is exceptional as it was fortunate enough to have been selected as a pilot for UNFPA programme work. Babies or mothers dying during birth are still depressingly common in rural Kyrgyzstan where access to all kinds of health care is often very limited. “Recently, my second child died because my wife gave birth in a field, I could not help her because we were very far from a hospital,” Kylichbek Sopulaev, a 28-year-old father of three children, said in the Aksy district of the southern province of Jalal-Abad, one of the poorest parts of the country. The number of women dying due to pregnancy or childbirth worldwide exceeds 500,000 per year. The problem is most desperate in sub-Saharan Africa, where maternal death rates are said to be as much as 1,000 times higher than in high-income countries, according to the WHO. Along with the high death rates is the fact that six out of 10 births in rural Kyrgyzstan result in complications and illnesses that can negatively affect the mother and child, often permanently. “The poverty of the rural population, the lack of medicine and gynecological equipment and poorly trained medical personnel are the main reasons for birth being such a risk for mother and child in Kyrgyzstan,” explained Asanbaeva. A general lack of contraceptives and poor knowledge of how to use them means birth rates remain high, further endangering women with each subsequent birth.