Why is it still so hard to have a baby?
Author: Ellie Evelyn, Senior Operations Officer
Motherhood should be a joyous journey that women embark on; however at home and overseas due to the maternal death rate, motherhood can be a much more daunting venture.
The maternal death rate in the UK has always been a prevalent issue, with a report in January 2024 highlighting that it currently stands at its highest in 20 years.5 X More' campaign spearheaded by Tinuke Awe, who experienced her own birth trauma, raising awareness of the racial disparities in childbirth. Black mothers are more likely to die during childbirths, compared with their white counterparts, including in the 6 weeks postpartum.
The difference in maternal healthcare across the spectrum of wealth must also be acknowledged, with the poorest 20% of mothers in the UK twice as likely to die during the postnatal period in comparison to the wealthiest 20% in the country. Furthermore, MP for Stafford, Theo Clarke has gained parliamentary awareness for the issue after her own traumatic birth story where after a 40 hour labour and heavy bleeding, she was then left for 2 hours without general anaesthetic. Since this ordeal Theo Clarke MP has initiated the Birth Trauma inquiry in parliament, which is due to report on its findings in April 2024. Theo Clarke MP has also called for birth trauma to be included into the Women’s Health Strategy. While the UK has the resources to adapt its maternal healthcare strategy, nations of the global south also require our support"
As of 2020, it was found that 443 women died during or very soon after childbirth in Sierra Leone, out of every 100,000 live births. In March 2023 I had the privilege of visiting Sierra Leone, in which we visited Bo Children’s Hospital as well as a community healthcare centre in a local community. On this visit the challenges to providing adequate healthcare for mothers in contrast to the UK was stark. Starting in the community centre that caters to the health and wellbeing of over 5,000 inhabitants, the maternity suite was a small room with the capacity to fit in only two single beds and a narrow path down the middle. With this in mind it is no surprise that the number of pregnant women in the community outnumber the single midwife and two maternal assistants available. Additionally, the mothers that gave birth in the local healthcare centre were provided with almost no pain relief - at most some paracetamol. The limited resources available in the global south have devastating consequences for mothers, and their babies
Furthermore blood loss is a common issue during childbirth, due to the trauma of labour. At Bo Children's Hospital we saw the direct impact UK aid had in mitigating this problem in the form of blood storing and donation equipment. The blood bags and fridges that store the donated blood comes from the support the FCDO provides and saves thousands of lives as a result of storing and testing the blood donated; assessing the suitability for the patient requiring it.
It is not just the existing phenomena of poor maternal healthcare that contributes to the maternal death rate but newer unpredictable issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic created an even greater issue in the avoidance of the preventable deaths of mothers and babies with mothers from low and middle-income countries seeing approximately 2-3 more deaths of mothers or babies for each COVID-19 related death. This statistic magnifies the impact of the pandemic on the accessibility of healthcare as well as the quality of care that could be provided amongst a background of a global pandemic.
Maternal healthcare is a central pillar of the UK’s development funding, and it is a success story for UK aid that the ending of preventable deaths of mothers and babies by 2030 prioritised in the FCDO approach paper published in 2021. However, the threats to a healthy birth that women in the global south face are related to a number of factors that are largely preventable. Therefore it is pivotal that the 2030 goal is reached through the support of UK aid reaching the women and children who are in dire need of sustainable healthcare solutions.
