Kaduna State Primary Health Care Development Agency (KPHCDA) on Wednesday said it trained 200 traditional birth attendants to reduce maternal mortality rate in the state.
The Assistant Director of the agency, Alhaji Hamza Ibrahim-Ikara, made the disclosure in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna.
He said that the traditional birth attendants were drawn from 14 local government councils of the state, noting that the
training was in collaboration with Maternal Child Health 2 (MCH2) and Clinton Health Access Initiative.
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Ibrahim-Ikara said that the traditional birth attendants were given kits for them to work with by UNICEF.
“We are conducting training for traditional birth attendants to enable us to reduce maternal mortality rate in the state.
“We want to encourage women to attend antenatal care, especially in communities without healthcare.”
He said that the state have 1,750 women voluntary mobilisers working in 18 local government councils, performing same functions as traditional birth attendants.
“Kaduna is one of the states with increasing rate of maternal mortality and we want to stem the tide,” he said.
The assistant director said that participants were trained on the use of modern delivery kits and skills on how to encourage pregnant women to attend antenatal clinics.
He said that improving the capacity of traditional birth attendants would reduce death of women during child delivery, particularly in the rural areas.
He explained that the training would also prepare women to embrace routine immunisation and encourage personal hygiene.
Ibrahim-Ikara said that the state was also preparing to train midwives and community health workers on life saving skills.
“We have started training health workers on how to improve their capacity in life saving skills, he said, and urged pregnant women to always attend antenatal clinics to ensure safe delivery. (NAN)