The foundations of your well-being are laid before birth. Unfortunately, thousands of babies in Kenya experience problems in the womb and die before birth while those who make it, are born either 'born too small' or 'born too soon'.
Currently, every year, about 120,500 babies in Kenya are born too soon before nine months.
According to experts, babies born too soon or too small are vulnerable to death in the first month, or later in their childhood. Many of them suffer long-term health problems.
Kenyan scientists have now joined others in developing strategies to prevent such births.
The strategies, published in the Lancet journal as a series, have been given a nod by the Ministry of Health.
They provide low-cost pregnancy interventions that include multiple micronutrient supplements, treatment of syphilis, and treatment of asymptomatic bacterial infection for all women.
The targeted interventions include low-dose aspirin, balanced protein energy supplements, prevention of malaria in pregnancy, progesterone provided vaginally, and smoking cessation.
“As a government and especially with the devolution of health services, we are developing technological specifications to ensure standardisation of operating procedures and training manuals,” said Dr Job Nyangena, the Ministry of Health’s acting head of the division of health informatics.
In Kenya, the preterm birth rate was estimated to be 12 per 100 live births in 2014 demographic and health survey, this could have increased to rates of 14 per 100 live births, according to recent studies.
A separate report, Born Too Soon: decade of action, released in May this year, showed 127,500 babies were born too soon in Kenya in 2020.
Preterm birth (born too soon) is when a baby is born before 37 weeks of pregnancy have been completed. Low birth weight (born too small) describes babies born weighing less than 2.5 kilogrammes.
Prof Marleen Temmerman, director of Aga Khan University’s Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health, East Africa (CoEWCH EA) in Nairobi, said, “One out of four babies is born too early, too small, or stillborn. It is our moral duty to invest in the prevention of small vulnerable newborns through early and high-quality antenatal and childbirth care and through girls and women reproductive rights.”
Aga Khan and the Small Vulnerable Newborn Consortium launched the Lancet Series on Small Vulnerable Newborns in Nairobi recently.
Dr Abdu Mohiddin, a physician and assistant professor at the Aga Khan University, said, “Twenty per cent of babies born in Sub-Saharan Africa are small vulnerable newborns, yet prevention is possible. This is the challenge we all need to tackle, the Nairobi launch aims to help us do this.”
Last year, the Ministry of Health said Nairobi county tops the list of the top 10 counties with high rates of preterm babies.
The ministry said these counties account for 52 per cent of the total premature babies born in the country.
Nairobi has 5,338 babies born too soon.
Nakuru comes second with 2,815, Kiambu with 2,330 preterm births, Kilifi with 1,919 and Bungoma with 1,544.
Others include Kajiado with 1,424, Kisumu with 1,346, Mombasa with 1,303, Trans Nzoia with 1,071, Kakamega with 1,49 and Nyeri with 966 preterm babies.
The data shows that the rate of premature births in Kenya stands at 12 per cent and 13,300 children under the age of five die from direct premature complications.
The Lancet Series on small vulnerable newborns calls for standardisation of data, technology, and quality pre-natal information as national preventive measures to curb the high rate of new-borns born too small or too soon.
“Preterm and low birth weight are associated with multiple morbidities with short- and long-term adverse consequences, for newborns, their families, and society-at-large, resulting in a major loss of human and economic capital,” the Lancet report says.
“Prevention of preterm and small for gestational age births is critical for global child health and for societal development.”