{"id":47528,"date":"2025-06-03T03:20:54","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T03:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=47528"},"modified":"2025-06-03T03:20:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T03:20:58","slug":"one-death-every-seven-minutes-the-worlds-worst-country-to-give-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=47528","title":{"rendered":"One death every seven minutes: The world’s worst country to give birth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the age of 24, Nafisa Salahu was in danger of becoming just another statistic in Nigeria, where a woman dies giving birth every seven minutes, on average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going into labour during a doctors’ strike meant that, despite being in hospital, there was no expert help on hand once a complication emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her baby’s head was stuck and she was just told to lie still during labour, which lasted three days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually a Caesarean was recommended and a doctor was located who was prepared to carry it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I thanked God because I was almost dying. I had no strength left, I had nothing left,” Ms Salahu tells the BBC from Kano state in the north of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She survived, but tragically her baby died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleven years on, she has gone back to hospital to give birth several times and takes a fatalistic attitude. “I knew [each time] I was between life and death but I was no longer afraid,” she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms Salahu’s experience is not unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nigeria is the world’s most dangerous nation in which to give birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the most recent UN estimates for the country<\/a>, compiled from 2023 figures, one in 100 women die in labour or in the following days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That puts it at the top of a league table no country wants to head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, Nigeria accounted for well over a quarter – 29% – of all maternal deaths worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is an estimated total of 75,000 women dying in childbirth in a year, which works out at one death every seven minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC: At the age of 24, Nafisa Salahu was in danger of becoming just another statistic in Nigeria, where a woman dies giving birth every seven minutes, on average. Going into labour during a doctors’ strike meant that, despite being in hospital, there was no expert help on hand once a complication emerged. Her baby’s head was stuck and she was just told to lie still during labour, which lasted three days. Eventually a Caesarean was recommended and a doctor was located who was prepared to carry it out. “I thanked God because I was almost dying. I had no… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47530,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47528\/revisions\/47530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}