A Road Less Travelled Highlights Gap in Maternal Health Services for Kenya’s Maasai Communities

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By: Sarah Blake, MHTF consultant

A Road Less Travelled, which is a partnership project led by Anglican Overseas Aid, Australia that supports nomadic pastoralists to improve maternal and child health within their communities in Ethiopia and Kenya, featured a blog post this week underscoring the challenges that go with efforts to fill the gap in health service coverage for women in Maasai communities in Kenya raising several questions about the role of traditional birth attendants within efforts to improve maternal health in these communities.  

From the blog post:

The question now is: what can be done to bridge the gap? Could empowering the TBAs more help to bridge the gap, and contribute more towards safer deliveries? Should training be provided to TBAs to improve their skills? Should they be linked with the formal health system so that TBAs and professional health workers act collaboratively to assist women during pregnancy?

To view the GMCH2013 video and PowerPoint presentation  by James Senjura of the Mothers’ Union of the Anglican Church Kenya (MUACK), A Road Less Traveled’s partner in Kenya, click here.

For additional information, visit A Road Less Traveled’s Blog here and their January guest post on this blog here.