About 51.5 per cent of pregnant women in Gombe State still deliver at home, posing a threat to child survival.
The health officer of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Bauchi field office, Olusheyi Olosunde, revealed this.
He made the revelation during a media dialogue on keeping every child alive and ending child mortality in Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba States organised by UNICEF. He held at Crispan Hotel, Jos, Plateau State.
According to him, the data released last month by the National Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) shows that over five out of 10 women in Gombe, equivalent to 51.5 per cent, give birth at home, contributing to child’s death due to lack of immunisation and other health care services needed by him.
He added that in Bauchi, 68.9 per cent of pregnant women do not deliver at the hospital, while in Taraba, 67 per cent give birth at home.
The UNICEF’s health officer further disclosed that the statistics indicated that postnatal care does not reach 55.1 per cent of newborns in Gombe, 76.1 per cent in Bauchi, and 67 per cent in Taraba, while about three out of 10 newborn children do not receive immunisation in the three states.
Earlier, UNICEF’s communication officer, Opeyemi Olagunju, lamented that child mortality is a significant public health challenge in Nigeria, with approximately 120,000 children under the age of five dying each year, opening that many of these deaths are preventable.
He said the goal of the media engagement was to ignite a meaningful conversation about child mortality in the three states, raising awareness of the root causes of child mortality, its socio-economic and health impacts, and the urgent need for collective action from a broad range of stakeholders.
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