DOH curbs incidence of maternal deaths

The Department of Health (DOH) has built 25 health facilities across the country for mothers and pregnant women.

These facilities were built as the incidence of maternal deaths has risen to 10 every 24 hours, or 180 per 100,000 live births.

Most of the deaths, which run to thousands, occur in remote areas and among low-income families, whose access to health care is constrained economically and geographically.

Thus, the DOH built 11 lying-in clinics (LICs) and 14 maternity waiting homes (MWHs) in priority areas, from as far north as the Cordilleras to the southernmost part of Mindanao.

The LICs are mostly housed in rural health units while the MWHs are located in the compounds of district and provincial hospitals.

The 11 LICs are in Apayao, Mt. Province, Bontoc, Palawan, Oriental Mindoro, Biliran, Eastern Samar, Maguindanao, North Cotabato, Tawi-Tawi, and Zamboanga del Sur.

The 14 MWHs are in Apayao, Kalinga, Ifugao, Benguet, Puerto Princesa City, Sorsogon, Eastern Samar, Masbate, Maguindanao, Surigao del Norte, Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga del Sur, Sulu and Basilan.

The LIC is for normal delivery, while the MWH is a place where high-risk pregnant women who are about to deliver are housed so that they can easily be transferred to the hospital when necessary.

These facilities form part of the Women’s Health and Safe Motherhood Project (WHSMP) of the DOH, which not only integrates women’s health and safe motherhood into the regular services of the country’s health units, but also provides safe home delivery kits and food supplements for pregnant women and lactating mothers.

Such facilities enable pregnant women to avail themselves of prenatal, natal and postnatal services, and regular medical attention.

In these facilities, mothers can also attend health classes and read materials on maternal care, even after delivery when they need postnatal checkups, and instructions on breast feeding, proper nutrition while nursing, baby care, needed immunizations, and ways of postponing the next pregnancy.