Pain, shock for families when mothers die while giving life

Kevin Wekesa, a father of three from Kawangware in Nairobi, remembers the call that came just a day before Christmas. His wife Beatrice Luvule was on the other end of the line. She was panting while whispering that Wekesa needed to rush home.

He was at work, inside the small cubicle where he is employed as a money transfer agent in town.

His wife’s water had broken, three weeks before the delivery date. She kept saying there was a sharp pain in her chest – one she had not felt when giving birth to her other children.

Wekesa boarded a matatu and on reaching hospital, he found his wife held by two neighbours. She was shivering, her body bathed in sweat. Nurses were frantically trying to draw blood from her arm.

By the time she was being wheeled into the labour ward to check on the progress of the baby, she was already foaming at the mouth.

The doctor in charge recommended a referral to Kenyatta National Hospital. As they struggled to get an ambulance, Wekesa noticed Luvule was sliding in and out of consciousness. Any time she awoke, she grabbed his arm and begged for the baby to be removed. 

“I did not have enough money to hire an ambulance. I got so frustrated that I started crying, because nothing was working,” he says.

Clenched her teeth

As the clocked ticked a few minutes past 10pm, an ambulance snaked its way into the slum and Luvule was bundled on a stretcher and into the ambulance. It was about five hours since they checked into the dispensary. In that period, Wekesa says his wife had begged, cried, buried her nails in his arm as she cried in pain. She had clenched her teeth, vomited, had a convulsion and eventually lost consciousness as they waited for help.

Early in the morning, on Christmas Day, Luvule succumbed.

She had lost a lot of blood becoming part of the 510 maternal deaths per 100,000 births statistics recorded by World Bank data about Kenya. A figure medics say is alarming, compared to those of neighbouring countries.

Tomorrow, when the world celebrates Mothers Day, Wekesa says he and his three children will commemorate a mother they lost – and the little boy they never saw. The one who died as doctors struggled to perform an emergency caesarean section. Wekesa believes his wife could have been saved if medics had acted fast. 

“Someone should have stopped the bleeding. I was ready to donate all the blood I could for her to live,” he says.

Data from the first Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths (CEMD) in Kenya published by the Ministry of Health in 2017 shows majority (91 per cent) of women who died of obstetric haemorrhage received sub-optimal care, and that had they been given proper management, they would have probably lived.

Recognise signs

Pamela Godia, senior technical officer at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and lead author of CEMD, says to reduce maternal death, medics need to recognise signs of bleeding, and know how to control it.

“With every ounce of blood they lose, and every second that passes, they get closer to death. These mothers die while talking, and die as people watch,” she says, adding that “there is a shortage of blood in most major hospitals, and a woman is likely to die when she starts haemorrhaging.”

Her statement is reinforced by Faith Musikoyo who recounts how her sister, Mercy Ngaywa, died after giving birth last year. She pauses, sighs and says sometimes when she closes her eyes, the image of Mercy lying limp on the operation table flashes in her mind.

“I have not been able to get over the loss. One minute she was preparing to receive her new born, and the next one she was gone. She talked till the last minute,” she says. Mercy had gone to deliver her third child at Guru Nanak Hospital when things went awry. Post mortem results showed she succumbed after excessive bleeding.

Minutes preluding her death, Faith had gotten a message from her brother-in-law saying Mercy had developed complications and needed to be moved to ICU.

Surrounded by nurses

The wait for an ambulance, trudging through hospital corridors seeking answers and finally being led to the room where Mercy lay – lifeless, surrounded by a team of nurses waiting to transfer her to the mortuary – is an experience Faith says will remain etched in her memory.

Her sister died a few minutes after hearing the cry of her daughter – a little girl who Mercy says will grow with a new definition of motherhood.

“One day, when she is old enough, she will know that while bringing life, some mothers die. It is the ultimate sacrifice,” she says.