Mandera, Kenya: The Worst Place to Be Pregnant and Give Birth
Pregnancy and giving birth is a blessing and a wondrous experience for parents once the baby safely arrives, but not in a remote area in Kenya where mothers die with their children or one of them does.
Mandera is a remote region that homes the only hospital in the huge country with a million people that offers free services, making it the health facility that numerous residents run to.
Fardowsa Abdi is just one of the moms-to-be who traveled 300 kilometers (186 miles) to reach the hospital so she can deliver safely. However, no one is safe in a hospital that doesn't have blood in its blood bank and Abdi badly needed blood after a cesarean section.
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According to Ruth Sambu, a maternity nurse at the Mandera County Referral Hospital, women who get pregnant in the area are almost 10 times more likely to die in childbirth than in war-torn countries like Afghanistan or Syria. Compared to America, it is 135 times more critical to pregnant in Mandera, the nurse says.
Ubah Ibrahim, an activist for women in Kenya, says female genital mutilation (FGM) is one of the reasons that makes the births more difficult since it could result to deadly consequences such as "obstruction at the vaginal wall."
Sambu adds that medical staff are getting overwhelmed by the busy schedule and lack of tools, plus the pressure that goes with safely delivering a baby. This is why there are very few doctors in the area.
While it is estimated that about 38 mothers die in childbirth for every 1,000 live births in Mandera County, the U.N. Population Fund, U.N. Development Program, and the First Lady of Kenya, Lady Margaret Kenyatta, have donated mobile maternity clinics to 32 Kenyan counties. The mobile clinics are a huge help to keep both mother and child alive during childbirth.
Abdi survived after she hemorrhaged after her cesarean birth after CNN's Robyn Kriel donated blood during the emergency surgery that saved the B negative mother's life.
