Somaliland Maternal Mortality
Question One
One of the challenges that pregnant women face in Somaliland is that women do not have a fundamental right to go and see a healthcare professional due to inadequate funding by the government. The other issue is that women have a one in twelve chance of dying during childbirth due to lack of medical personnel, facilities as well as infrastructure (Lerner, 2020). There is also a lack of awareness on matters to do with contraceptives, which leads to high childbirth rate, significantly increasing the likelihood of complications.
Question Two
One of the reasons for maternal mortality in Somaliland is the fact that many women are malnourished during the pregnancy period. There is also the issue of women being anemic due to a lack of iron in their diet, which ends up complicating their deliveries (Lerner, 2020). The third reason is the widespread practice of female genital mutilation, which has the effect of complicating childbirth through obstructive labor.
Question Three (a)
Edna has developed a public health midwife program to train many women from far-flung districts on the basic concepts of midwifery such as injections, putting an IV, preventing complications, and dealing with issues that come with pregnancy (Lerner, 2020). The clinic is also pushing for more education and sensitization amongst women on the dangers of female genital mutilation in a bid to halt the practice amongst the Somali communities. Edna and her partners are exploring ways through which they can compensate the women who are tasked with performing female genital mutilation on women so that they can retire from the practice and engage in other productive ventures within the community.
Question Three (b)
The efforts have been relatively successful over the years since the younger educated generation has begun to see the dangers that are posed by the practice of female genital mutilation. The midwives, that Edna trains are the ones tasked with disseminating the knowledge to members of her community on issues about FGM, the spacing of childbirth, and other matters that touch on maternal healthcare (Lerner, 2020). These efforts have also lead to more women and girls being interested in working in health care. This development has contributed to the reduction of maternal deaths at the Edna hospital, standing at one-quarter of the national average.
Question Four (a)
The statement means that global organizations are aware of the healthcare plight of women in Asia and Africa, but they do not rank this plight as a top priority for them at the moment owing to them being poor and uneducated. I do agree with this statement because the reality on the ground accurately captures Kristof’s observation. Issues that touch on women in Asia and Africa rarely get global recognition, which leads to significantly less funding from the donor agencies.
Question Four (b)
Poverty and lack of education make women more vulnerable to death or illness in the course of labor and pregnancy since they have to rely on male members of the community to make decisions for them. Lack of education also means that they do not know what is best for them in terms of spacing their children and declining harmful practices such as FGM. Women that are ignorant about their bodies cannot make an informed decision on when to have a child or what foods they should eat to reduce cases of anemia, which are rampant across the communities in Somaliland.
Reference
Lerner, S. (2020). Somaliland maternal mortality [Video]. Retrieved from