Home visit trials strongly encouraged spouses to get involved
Nigerian women are at high risk of death related to pregnancy and child birth. Accurate figures are hard to come by, but the World Health Organisation estimates there are more than 800 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births in Nigeria. That’s about 100 times higher than rates in Canada or the United Kingdom.
Researchers undertook a trial to test the impact of universal home visits – carried out by trained female and male “home visitors” – in Bauchi, a state in northern Nigeria.
After one year of the intervention, researchers compared outcomes over four areas, which will be called wards. Two which had received visits – totalling 1,837 women who had given birth – and two which hadn’t, with a total of 1,853 women who had recently had their babies.