Report: Mortality Rate and Pregnancy Challenges in Sierra Leone

This report addresses the critical issue of high mortality rates and teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone. It highlights that early pregnancy is a significant challenge, with a high percentage of women aged 15-19 affected. The report explores contributing factors such as early marriages, lack of sexual health knowledge, and related health issues like HIV. It also analyzes the impact on both mothers and children, including malnutrition and early death. The paper then proposes advocacy approaches, including forming teenage groups for support, educational development to enhance awareness and skills, and enhanced healthcare support with family planning and financial assistance. It emphasizes the need for international and national collaborations to address this complex issue and concludes by underscoring the need for a robust structure to support these vulnerable women.

Running head: MORTALITY RATE AND PREGNANCY IN SIERRA LEONE
Mortality rate and pregnancy in Sierra Leone
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

1MORTALITY RATE AND PREGNANCY IN SIERRA LEONE
The issue of early pregnancy is one of the common issues of the developing countries of
the 21st century. However, in the case of countries like Sierra Leone, it has been observed that
the country faces one of the serious challenges of teenage pregnancy (Denney et al., 2018). This
has been highlighted that 20% of women between the ages of 15-19 are subjected to early
pregnancy (Bellizzi et al., 2018). Over 40% of the totals among women happen due to the
reasons of the teen pregnancy (UNICEF, 2019). This is important to note that some of the
reasons for this early pregnancy and related death are the custom of early marriages below the
age of 18 is a common phenomenon. This further deteriorates the situation of early pregnancy
and high rate of mortality. This teenage pregnancy leads to the problem of lack of knowledge
and concern for the sexual health of women themselves and severe diseases like HIV (Denney et
al., 2018). There is a number of international and national government and institutions taking
steps for the development of understanding regarding the issues they are facing. This is the
particular issue has been termed as the “children of children” since the age of carrying a child is
low, and it is having a negative impact for both the mother and child (Bellizzi et al., 2018).
Childbirth at this age is one of the reasons for risk of mortality and morbidity. Moreover, there is
a higher number of fistula among teenage mothers. Such a situation is not only detrimental to the
health of the mother; it is equally detrimental to the child as well. In most of the situations,
children of these mothers are malnourished or die at an early age due to the factors of lack of
treatment and nourishment (Labat et al., 2018). This can also be highlighted that the problem of
early childbirth is related to the lack of educating among the young girls. Hence this paper will
be preparing one of the advocacy approaches for eradicating higher mortality rate of the teenage
of Sierra Leone.

2MORTALITY RATE AND PREGNANCY IN SIERRA LEONE
Formation of teenage groups: this is particularly important for the teenage
mothers who are facing similar situations in their life to talk and share their issues, and this will
be essential to develop belief and faith that their issues are not singular instead it is one for the
major issue that the government should reduce. This will create awareness of the women towards
their issues. Moreover, some of the skills and training programs would be adopted in order to
empower them with some new skills that can make them self-sufficient and independent of
anyone.
Educational development: a common platform would be developed for enhancing
their level if education since it is essential for them to become aware of their situation and the
only way of reaching to this state, is education and skills (Witter et al., 2018). Such educational
qualifications would also b providing the required psychological support to teenage mothers and
aspire them to achieve more. Only consciousness of the self can raise their protection of health.
Thirdly it is crucial to provide the extra health care support that these
women require since it has been observed the health issues faced by them is more complex and
in most of the situation it is complex slowly leading to death. Since Sierra Leone is the seventh
country with the highest mortality rate in the world, the government required an enhanced
understanding of the issue of the policies in place to avoid the gap.
Lifesaving vaccines are one of the critical aspects of ensuring health protection of the
teenage; this will be helpful for the development of safe and secure health. Along with this
strategy, there is a need to develop family planning, a strict law in practice for ensuring better
health facilities for these women, emergency plans, and management of the newborn child since
it is also about the growth and healthy development of the children that is important.

3MORTALITY RATE AND PREGNANCY IN SIERRA LEONE
There is a need to develop the technical and financial support to these women
and their families. This can be achieved by cooperating and communicating with other
international and national institutions of the world, for example, the WHO, UNICEF and the
World Bank since it has been observed that the development of the financial support is crucial to
the development of the poorer nations (Denney et al., 2018). At the local level, it is essential to
develop and engage the domestic workers, health workers and the nurses to help these women
for a healthy and secure life.
It can be concluded from the above discussion that the issue of teenage pregnancy
requires the development of a robust structure that can cater to the needs of these women who
are subjected to this problem.

4MORTALITY RATE AND PREGNANCY IN SIERRA LEONE
References
Bellizzi, S., Sobel, H., Betran, A. P., & Temmerman, M. (2018). Early neonatal mortality in twin
pregnancy: Findings from 60 low-and-middle-income countries. Journal of global
health, 8(1).
Denney, L., Gordon, R., Kamara, A., & Lebby, P. (2017). Change the context, not the girls: a
critical analysis of efforts to reduce teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone. Journal of
Research in Gender Studies, 7(1).
Labat, A., Medina, M., Elhassein, M., Karim, A., Jalloh, M. B., Dramaix, M., ... & Dickson, K.
E. (2018). Contraception determinants in youths of Sierra Leone are largely
behavioral. Reproductive health, 15(1), 66.
Sierraleone.unfpa.org. (2019). [online] Available at:
https://sierraleone.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/UNFPA-
Children_Bearing_Children-SL.pdf [Accessed 16 Apr. 2019].
UNICEF. (2019). Ending child marriage and teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone. [online]
Available at: https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/sierraleone_100861.html [Accessed
16 Apr. 2019].
Witter, S., Brikci, N., Harris, T., Williams, R., Keen, S., Mujica, A., ... & Renner, A. (2018). The
free healthcare initiative in Sierra Leone: Evaluating a health system reform, 2010‐
2015. The International journal of health planning and management, 33(2), 434-448.