Roundup: Zimbabwe maternal mortality drops 32 pct due to improved maternal health care

Zimbabwe's maternal mortality rate dropped 32 percent to 651 per 100,000 live births from a whooping 960 in 2010 mainly due to improved maternal health care, according to preliminary findings of the 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey launched Friday.

Officials however, lamented that maternal mortality still remains unacceptably high and far below government target to reduce the deaths to 326 per 100,000 live births by 2020.

"We have seen that maternal mortality has declined to 651 per 100,000 live births but still these levels are still unacceptably high and very far from the 2020 target of the Ministry of Health," said UNFPA country representative Cheikh Tidiane Cisse.

According to the survey, done after every five years, nearly one third of the deaths occurring among women aged between 20 and 24 are maternal.

According to the report, maternal health care improved with skilled birth attendance increasing to 78 percent compared to 66.2 percent in 2010.

"Skilled birth attendance at delivery has never been as high and the country is on the right track to achieve the 2020 target of 90 percent of women undergoing four antenatal care visits," the report said.

There was also an increase in antenatal care attendance to 75.7 percent from 64.8 percent in 2010 as well as significant improvements in post natal care.

According to the report, nearly twice as many women benefited from a post-natal check up in the first two days after birth in 2015 compared with 2010 when only 27.1 percent benefited from post natal care.

While inequalities in access to maternal health care had reduced, they were however, still wide in skilled birth attendance, with nearly all women with tertiary education giving birth with a skilled provider and only half of the non-educated getting skilled birth attendance.

According to the report, Zimbabwe, whose health delivery system has declined significantly over the years, needs to improve the quality of care and continue to reduce inequality in health coverage in order to drastically reduce maternal deaths.

"The disconnect between the high skilled attendance at birth, high contraceptive usage rates but high maternal mortality points to poor quality of care as a major contributor to the high maternal mortality.

"The implementation of an effective maternal death surveillance response system is one way of contributing to quality of care and improve maternal and prenatal deaths outcomes," the report said.

According to the report, adolescent fertility rate remains high among young girls aged 15-19, with nearly one in 10 adolescent girls giving birth every year.

The percentage of women who experienced violence in the last 12 months had decreased from 18.4 percent in 2010 to 14.5 percent in 2015, the report noted, adding that secondary education had been observed to be a protective factor for women against gender based violence.

The report noted that there was a 14 percent increase in use of modern contraceptive methods among married women and a 25 percent increase among married young girls aged 15-19 years old.

"Overally, prevalence of modern methods among married women has increased from 57.3 percent to 65.6 percent. The country is track to achieve the 2020 target, which is 68 percent," the report said.

The 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS) is the sixth since independence in 1980 and is done by government to collect demographic and health data to aid in the formulation of the country's development policies and programs. Endit