Bor Community Urged To Attend Antenatal Care Services
Community members in Bor and surrounding areas have been urged to attend antenatal care services in order to minimize complications at birth. 22 May 2013 Ms Elizabeth Akur, a community midwife at Bor Hospital, urges pregnant mothers to access antenatal care services. [Gurtong| Jacob Achiek Jok] By Jacob Achiek Jok BOR, 21 May 2013 [Gurtong] – Jonglei State’s maternity centre located in Bor may not have many qualified midwives to manage pregnant and sick mothers but the few are welcoming more pregnant mothers to come for antenatal care services. A Community Midwife, Elizabeth Akur Machar says their midwifery work is basically managing and taking care of mothers before, during and after childbirth. “Our taking care of the mothers start right away when the mother conceives until the day of delivery and up to six weeks of postpartum,” Akur said. Akur says after six weeks of postpartum, the mother is no longer their patient. She says some times as community midwives, they also do work of nurses at the maternity word. She says where there is birth complication; they usually call Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) and doctors for assistance, adding that their challenge in the maternity word is the lack of nurses. Many women still prefer to deliver at homes to coming to the hospital and this Akur attributes to ignorance on the importance of antenatal care services at the hospital and blames it on culture. “May be per a day, we get three or four deliveries in their maternity word. I can say that the first thing is traditional culture because some said that they usually deliver outside the hospital,” says Akur. “So they don’t accept the work of the hospital because they have cultures or traditional believes in them,” she explains. The hospital also does surgery to the mother who has complication during pregnancy. According to Akur, their antenatal care services also include vaccinating the pregnant mothers with Tetanus Toxiod vaccines. “This tetanus vaccination will help them during their pregnancy until they deliver. It helps them,” says Akur. The community midwife says they would have preferred and conducted community sensitization but it has not been started at the higher level yet. Maternal mortality in South Sudan is still one of the highest in the world. Posted in: Home, Health -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14opy%2B3d9OoLWKZNG%2BRnZyqAHUK9yBmF8n3%2BVB%2B6kjrrFNQ%40mail.gmail.com?hl=en-US. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
