BUJUMBURA June 4th (ABP) – The Ministry of Public Health and the Fight against AIDS, through its National Reproductive Health Program (PNSR), organized, from June 1 to 2, 2023, in Bujumbura, a media workshop on coverage of issues specific to reproductive health, adolescent and youth sexual reproductive health, family planning and nutrition.
That activity was financially supported by the Nkuriza Project of the World Bank within the framework of building the capacities of media professionals in the handling of news relating to reproductive health and nutrition.
In his presentation, Philbert Sinzinkayo of the PNSR indicated that the people of Burundi need to be sensitized to respond sufficiently to family planning, prenatal and postnatal consultations, childbirth in a health care setting in order to reduce the cases of maternal and child deaths. He reported that the main causes of maternal deaths are linked to what is called 4 Trops. He cited the early Trop, i.e., being pregnant before the age of 18, the late Trop, i.e., being pregnant after the age of 35, the close Trop, i.e., falling pregnant year after year and the many Trops, that is to say, many pregnancies exceeding five children.
He also pointed out that aside from death, women pregnant in those ways are at risk of obstetric fistula, abortion, and other consequences. For doctors to be able to intervene, pregnant women must make, from the first trimester until delivery, eight prenatal consultations, to allow doctors to correct certain pathologies that can harm pregnancy. Mothers are also urged to do postnatal consultations within 42 days after childbirth to detect, in time, any problem related to childbirth. It is the same for newborns who need regular monitoring because certain diseases, such as jaundice, can affect the newborn before 28 days. Those consultations will make it possible to achieve safe motherhood and good neonatal health, the vision of 2030 being to achieve less than 140 maternal deaths out of 100,000 births. Women were thus advised to give birth in health facilities to prevent the risks that may arise, but there are still 24% of women who still give birth at home, according to Mr. Sinzinkayo.
In addition, he pointed out that the Burundian population should understand the true merits of family planning, explaining that the population is growing. He specified that the rate of use of contraceptive methods, which was 33.8% in 2022 according to the results of a survey carried out, is not satisfactory.