No fewer than five thousand expectant mothers on Wednesday benefited from the free delivery kits distributed by the Support Toward Advancement Networking and Development for Women and Children Foundation (STAND) in Ibadan.
The STAND Executive Director, Ms Olusayo Adeleye, said the gesture was part of the efforts to tackle maternal and neonatal mortality in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal Three.
Adeleye described distribution of the delivery kits as life-saving health interventions to improve maternal healthcare delivery in the country.
“This is the first phase of the distribution of delivery kits under the STAND Foundation’s Abiye Safe Birth Initiative.
“We are starting at the Abidiodan Primary Healthcare Centre in Lagelu Local Government Area of the state to target low income and rural community areas of the state.
“Quite a number of maternal and neonatal deaths are as a result of infection caused by giving birth in unsanitary conditions and the use of unsterilised equipment.
“These kits contain all what a pregnant woman needs to have a safe, clean birth and prevent infection,” she said.
In her remarks, one of the beneficiaries, Mrs Adepeju Ajayi, 36, commended the foundation’s gesture.
She said that the kits was a worthy intervention for those who could not afford some of the items required by the healthcare centres.
Ajayi said that through the sensitisation programme, she had been encouraged to deliver in a healthcare centre with skilled attendants.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2015 pegged maternal mortality ratio for Nigeria at 814 deaths per 100,000 live births. (NAN)