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GHS asked to adopt ‘Pregnant Man’ initiative to reduce maternal mortality
Dr Micheal Wombeogo, Executive Director for Participatory Action for Rural Development Alternatives (PARDA), has advocated the adoption of the ‘Pregnant Man’ concept in maternal healthcare to reduce complications and mortality rates.
The ‘Pregnant Man’ concept was initiated by PARDA in 2012 in the Upper East region to increase pregnant women’s antenatal post-natal attendance, as well as skilled childbirth.
Dr Wombeogo told the Ghana News Agency that the ‘Pregnant Man’ concept encourages men to actively participate in a woman’s maternal journey by accompanying her to antenatal and post-natal clinics and motivating her to carry healthy babies to term.
He urged the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to scale up the ‘Pregnant Man’ initiative in all regions to ensure that men were well educated to provide the right assistance to their pregnant wives.
“Ensuring that husbands attend pregnancy school with their wives to learn about healthy eating, best sleeping postures during pregnancy and the right kind of support to offer can help improve maternal health,” he said.
Dr Wombeogo said the ‘Pregnant Man’ initiative, which was first implemented in the Upper East Region, has been well accepted by men in the community as a strategy for reducing late diagnosis of maternal complications.
“The pregnant man initiative simply means that when your wife is pregnant, you the man too is pregnant, and you need to go through the process with her,” he said.
Dr Wombeogo said that throughout the ‘Pregnant Man’ project implementation phase from 2012 to 2015, the Upper East Region had zero maternal deaths and only one maternal death from 2015 to 2018, with 22 mortalities recorded in 2023 due to the initiative’s discontinuation.
Dr Wombeogo said the ‘Pregnant Man’ initiative had over the years addressed the issue of poor logistics in health facilities, which discouraged health care workers from going to work.
He added that the initiative provided delivery beds, hospital beds, motorcycles, bicycles, community education training and maternity blocks to health care workers, communities, and pregnant women. –GNA