Mothers at risk of contracting infections

The rate of infant mortality in Narok county is decreasing after more women have started giving birth in hospitals

By Kipchumba Kemei 

About 90 per cent of child births in Narok County are done by traditional birth attendants.

The Maasai birth attendants have been doing the work due to a number of factors, some related to deep seated traditional practices and poor road network.

A survey of Narok South and North districts indicate that only expectant mothers from other communities and just a few Maasai women living near the main town and trading centres give birth in hospitals and dispensaries.

Expectant mothers from places as far as Loita and other trading centres along the Kenya-Tanzania border deliver at home and traditional birth attendants play a big role.

Home births

These are the most remote places of the region where it takes more than 12 hours to access Narok town where better health facilities can be reached.

Most mothers either deliver by the roadside with cases of them and the infants dying reported.

Infant mortality rate in the vast region, south of Nairobi is high and the exact number of deaths cannot be ascertained because they are not reported to the registrar of births and deaths.

The community traditional beliefs prohibit the community from openly discussing deaths in fear that it will revisit them.

Most mothers also prefer to deliver at home because they believe only their husbands and birth attendants are supposed to see them naked. 

They further believe that the traditional birth attendants will treat them better than the often abusive Clinical Officers. The birth attendants are expected to watch over the expectant mothers diets. They mainly recommend non fatty meals.

Myths

Traditional birth attendants believe that food rich in fats make un-borns grow unnecessarily big and hence endangering the mothers by putting them at risk of complications like having to undergo Cesarean operations.

The area is yet to shun Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which health experts believe contributes to birth problems. In the region, girls as young as 10 years undergo the rite.

The community believes that the unborn baby should be born small for easy passage through the birth canal, hence the expectant mothers are sometimes denied food or given light meals and blood.

“This practice is here to stay and we are disadvantaged because we don’t have hospitals or clinics to help us,” tersely says.

 Ngini Ene Karbolo a practising traditional birth attendant at Kojonga village near Nairegi-Enkare trading centre in Narok North notes that “when a woman delivers, a fat lamb or a he goat is slaughtered for her. The belief that it helps the breast feeding infant to develop immunity against diseases associated with cold weather.”

The Maasai community are pastoralists and they trek long distances in the cold with their children and cattle in search of water and pasture.

Attendants are normally rewarded for their work. They are given presents like goats and are usually incorporated into the family set up.

New mothers are normally under strict supervision from the attendants until after a given time when they are left on their own.

Government move

Sadly in a move aimed at discouraging home births, the Government stopped training attendants on hygiene and better methods of administering child birth several years ago.

The Government felt home births are prone to infections that later compromise the health of the mother and the child.

“These people play a big role in the society. The Government no longer trains them on hygiene because their role has been largely taken over by trained medics,” says the Narok North District Public Health Officer Mr John Towett.

Towett says with the advent of HIV/Aids, the Government saw it fit for mothers to deliver in hospitals and clinics to avoid mother-child infections which the traditional attendants cannot handle.

“The Government has expanded the provision of ante natal facilities in most parts of the country even in the so called remote areas. Soon the services will be all over to curb infant mortality rates and to check on HIV/Aids infections,” he adds.

The proprietor of Tasaru Tomonyok Chilren Rescue Centre in Narok town Mrs Agnes Pareiyo says safe methods of administering child births should be availed to curb infant mortality and HIV/Aids infections.