Maternal & Child Health in Nigeria: The Current Situation

Though we try our best to keep up-to-date on current events, we tend to pick and choose the issues we find to be pertinent to ourselves and our future. It can be difficult to find what we should be paying attention to in all the chaotic white noise of the media. This is where I am thankful to organizations like Médecins Sans Frontières at UIC. Organizations with worldwide connections are good sources to learn of issues that should be more discussed. Currently, the topic of Nigerian Maternal Healthcare is the point of discussion, and this is an excellent choice to understand issues pertinent to Nigeria and the world in more ways than one.

For one, the difficulties posed by the higher rates of birth in Nigeria is overpopulation. Nigeria is currently at a population of close to 215 million and is ever-growing. In 2018,

Nigeria’s urban area had a growth rate of around 6.5% annually and the country was projected to take the United States’ place as the third most populous country by 2050. Though population can be a source for pride, it can be taxing on a society. In this case study, Nigeria faces some obstacles including “depletion of resources, human congestion, weather modification, high unemployment rate, [and] environmental degradation.” What begins from a simplistic issue, grows to affect all factors of life. This growth of population is not necessarily unique to Nigeria in that this type of increase poses socioeconomic and public health difficulties for many nations. These difficulties are something many nations face which give all the more reason to pay attention to and help out Nigeria as a whole.

Another worldly issue Nigerian maternal health brings to the table is children’s health. Despite having such a high birth rate, the mortality rates for women and children alike are some of the highest. With resources scarce for the skyrocketing number of births, children are not always able to reach utmost developmental ability. The difficult reality these children face on its own is exigent, but this issue expands across the globe. The World Health Organization does the honors of voicing that “no single country is adequately protecting children’s health”. We all have work cut out for us when it comes to supporting the youth of the world.

Female genital mutilation(FGM) and female abuse is another topic that is covered. Female genital mutilation is an act of violence against women where their genitalia are severed causing immense pain for a long while after. Nigeria is third on the list of FGM occurrence. Despite efforts to reduce this practice, it continues to thrive in 2021. It could be due to the foundation of the practice in a culture and larger society that this issue persists. This is why UNICEF suggests collective reform methods to create expansive change at once instead of individually. These methods are yet to be effectively implemented. From this August, there was found to be “200 million girls and women … cut in 30 countries.” If action is not taken, the problem will only continue to grow.

This MSF topic covers far more worldly topics, but I think we’ve begun to answer how understanding news from a variety of sources and on concepts we may think do not concern us can be vital to growing together. Keeping up can be hard to do, but, when we know where to look, it can give us the knowledge we need to heal the world.

References:

Campbell, J. (2018, April 20). Nigeria faces a crippling population boom. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved October 24, 2021, from https://www.cfr.org/blog/nigeria-faces-crippling-population-boom.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) statistics. UNICEF DATA. (2021, September 10). Retrieved October 24, 2021, from https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/female-genital-mutilation/.

Health & HIV. Related UNICEF Websites. (2021, April 27). Retrieved October 24, 2021, from https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/health-hiv.

Nigeria population 2021 (live). Nigeria Population 2021 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs). (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2021, from https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/nigeria-population.

Njoku, G. (2017, May 27). Take action to eliminate female genital mutilation by 2030. Related UNICEF Websites. Retrieved October 24, 2021, from https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/press-releases/take-action-eliminate-female-genital-mutilation-2030.

Theodore, O. I. (2006). The effects of population growth in Nigeria. Journal of Applied Sciences, 6(6), 1332–1337. https://doi.org/10.3923/jas.2006.1332.1337

Thiroux, S. (2021, July 26). Traditions of Female Genital Mutilation in Nigeria. The Borgen Project. Retrieved October 24, 2021, from https://borgenproject.org/female-genital-mutilation-in-nigeria/.

World Health Organization. (2020, February 19). World failing to provide children with a healthy life and a climate fit for their future: WHO-UNICEF-Lancet. World Health Organization. Retrieved October 24, 2021, from https://www.who.int/news/item/19-02-2020-world-failing-to-provide-children-with-a-healthy-life-and-a-climate-fit-for-their-future-who-unicef-lancet.