Examines Effects Of Maternal Mortality On Infants In Tanzania

Main Category: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 26 Jun 2009 - 5:00 PST

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The New York Times on Thursday examined the effects of maternal mortality on infants in Tanzania, many of whom live in village orphanages after their mothers' deaths. The article is the last in a three-part series on pregnancy- and childbirth-related deaths in the country.

The Times reports that 250,000 women die annually during pregnancy or childbirth in Africa as the result of bleeding, infection, high blood pressure, prolonged labor and botched abortions. Although many of these problems can be treated or prevented with basic obstetrical care, Tanzania has too few physicians, nurses and drugs -- and is short on equipment, ambulances and paved roads -- to address the issue.

Women who die during pregnancy often are survived by their infants. The newborns do not have access to breastmilk, and formula and baby food are not widely available in the country. To avoid malnutrition and infection, the infants often are taken to orphanages that can provide basic care until they reach age two or three, and then they are returned to their extended families.

The article profiled an innovative program at the Berega Orphanage that is being widely replicated in Africa. The "program is designed to meet the infants' emotional as well as physical needs," by having "teenage girls from their extended families living with [the infants] at the orphanage," the Times reports. The girls -- known as "bintis" in Swahili -- learn how to take care of the infants and are then better able to take care of them when they return to their villages. Ute Klatt, a German missionary and nurse who has been the director of the orphanage for 10 years, explains that "the families weren't visiting, and it was hard to reintegrate the children." With the bintis, "the children grow up more normally, as they might at home," she said (Grady, New York Times, 6/25).

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