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The Maternal and Reproductive Health (MRH)on Saturday said it has commenced preparations to deploy community health workers across 11 local government areas of the state to identify pregnant women who are not accessing antenatal care (ANC) and link them to primary healthcare facilities.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the intervention, under the MamaBase programme, is aimed at increasing antenatal care utilisation and skilled birth attendance while reducing preventable maternal and neonatal deaths in underserved communities.
NAN also reports that the benefitted local government areas included: Chikun, Igabi, Giwa, Kagarko,Soba, Zaria ,Kauru,Kajuru, Kubau ,Kudan and Jaba.
Speaking at the conclusion of a training for local government coordinators and community-based health workers, the Programme Manager for Research at the MRH Collective, Uche Azubuike, said a baseline evaluation conducted across 11 local government areas had identified significant disparities in access to maternal healthcare services.
Azubuike said the assessment involved pregnant women, recently delivered mothers, healthcare authorities and community leaders across selected wards.
According to him, the study focused particularly on antenatal care attendance and facility-based deliveries, with findings showing that while some areas recorded relatively high utilisation, others were lagging behind.
He identified inadequate awareness of available maternal health services, prevailing social norms, inadequate infrastructure and equipment, shortages of healthcare personnel and negative experiences at some health facilities as major barriers to accessing maternal healthcare.
He said, “There are some social norms that are still very predominant in many of these communities that are preventing women from accessing and utilising skilled healthcare.”
Azubuike added that the availability of maternal health services was also unevenly distributed, with healthcare personnel and infrastructure concentrated mainly in larger primary healthcare centres.
He disclosed that some local government areas recorded better ANC utilisation than others, citing Jaba as one of the areas with relatively high utilisation, while Kudan and Kubau recorded lower utilisation.
According to him, Kudan was particularly concerning because the baseline assessment indicated low awareness of maternal and neonatal deaths, low utilisation of maternal healthcare services and inadequate infrastructure.
“These are some of the conversations that we will continue to have,” he said, stressing the need for interventions tailored to the realities of individual communities.
On the way forward, Azubuike explained that the MamaBase programme would identify pregnant women within communities and link them to the nearest primary healthcare facilities for antenatal services and facility-based delivery.
He said the programme was currently awaiting final approvals before full deployment into the communities.
He also called for the continued support of community leaders and local government health secretaries, whom he said had demonstrated strong commitment to the programme.
Speaking on the implementation strategy, the MamaBase Local Government Coordinator for Igabi, Shehu Umar Giwa, said coordinators would supervise community health workers and ensure that accurate and reliable data was collected to guide decision-making.
He said the community health workers would use designated data collection tools to document pregnant women and monitor their progress, while coordinators would provide supervision and respond to challenges encountered during implementation.
“We are going to coordinate those working in the community and make sure they send reliable data for decision-making. We will also support them through supervision and listen to their challenges and success stories,” Umarigiwa said.
Also speaking, Judith Amos, a local government coordinator, said the training had exposed participants to the challenges responsible for poor maternal and neonatal health outcomes in some communities.
She said the next step was to visit mapped communities and identify women who had never registered for antenatal care.
“We will go to the communities and search for women who have never been registered for ANC at a health facility, encourage and educate them on the importance of antenatal care and facility-based delivery,” she said.
Amos stressed that the programme would not only enrol the women but also ensure sustained follow-up and support throughout pregnancy until delivery.
The MamaBase programme is expected to strengthen community-level identification and referral of pregnant women while complementing existing maternal and reproductive health interventions in kaduna state.