Nigeria, a country of abundant resources and a leading role in African affairs, still struggles with one of the highest maternal mortality ratios worldwide. Although maternal deaths have declined globally since 1990, about 100 Nigerian women die each day while giving birth.
 
The vast disparity between the rich and the poor in the country contributes to the marginalization of the problem. Leaving the most vulnerable to a low provision of accessible healthcare and nutrition, the disparity has been reported to be the largest among 16 other African countries.
 

Stakeholders’ consensus at a three-day meeting by the Network of Reproductive Health Journalists was that the global gag rule, which requires that any overseas organisation receiving U.S. aid do not have anything to do with abortion, was anti-women and should be repelled.
 
 

Lamenting the increasing rate of maternal mortality in the country, Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has described pregnancy and child birthing greatest occupational hazard in Nigeria.
 
Addressing journalists in Ibadan at a strategy meeting organised by the Network of Reproductive Health Journalists in Nigeria (NRHJN), Adewole said that a nation must attach priority to women and children, adding that 30 percent of Nigeria’s Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) can be prevented by Family Planning (FP).
 

This was contained in a report by the Maternal and Pre-Natal Death Surveillance and Response, MPDSR, committee presented at a one-day workshop convened by Katsina State Maternal and Newborn Health Accountability Mechanism Forum, KATSMAF, yesterday.
 
The report said the 340 deaths recorded among the reproductive women was generated from 18 facilities between January and September.
 
It said between January and September, of the total number of 21,302 births across 18 general hospitals in Katsina State, 340 deaths were recorded.