Prevent Nigerian Mothers from Dying in Childbirth

Venture Strategies has made significant progress by incorporating policies and guidelines on the use of misoprostol for the prevention and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage into official policy documents for the government of Nigeria. These have far reaching implications on its integration in the healthcare system across the country and have enabled other organizations to initiate safe motherhood projects using misoprostol of their own. The net result is that misoprostol is nationally recognized as a key tool to save mothers’ lives due to excessive bleeding after childbirth and reduce the staggeringly high rate of maternal mortality in Nigeria, where 1 in 18 women die due to maternal causes.

Venture Strategies is expanding our own efforts in Nigeria. In November we began implementation of a community-based project in Kaduna state in conjunction with local partners. The project engages traditional midwives and birth attendants to administer misoprostol for prevention of PPH and will provide empirical evidence to inform policy makers on community-availability of misoprostol for home births. To date, sensitization of the participating communities was accomplished, trainings of providers in the facilities were completed, and traditional birth attendants were receiving their specialized training on Home-based Life Saving Skills and misoprostol for PPH. It is encouraging that the program has received support from religious and community leaders and the local emir himself attended the beginning of the traditional birth attendants’ training.