2,500 babies born in our facility every month – Lagos hospital

• He added that the situation of the country and economic downturn has forced many people to recalibrate their mentality about childbirth

An average of 2,500 childbirth deliveries are recorded at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) monthly.

These childbirth deliveries are had at the obstetric unit — Ayinke House — of the hospital.

The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Adetokunbo Fabamwo, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos.

Ayinke House is a maternal healthcare facility located within the premises of LASUTH and touted as Nigeria’s biggest maternity hospital after it was revamped and upgraded from an 80-bed facility to a 170-bed furnished with state-of-the-art medical equipment.

Fabamwo disclose that child deliveries at Ayinke House used to be higher, adding that the number has reduced compared to previous 3,000 per month child deliveries.

He added that the situation of the country and economic downturn has forced many people to recalibrate their mentality about childbirth.

“It’s now low compared to what used to happen in the past, but I believe that the economy has actually cautioned people to limit the sizes of their families, so not too many people are eager to come out with babies anymore.

“There was a time many years back that we used to do 3,000 per month deliveries,” he said.

He emphasised that pregnant women are given health education during antenatal care and also counseled on family planning and child spacing after delivery at the hospital’s family planning clinic.

On how Ayinke House had assisted the state to reduce its maternal morbidity and mortality rate, Fabamwo said the facility as a multispecialty medical centre provides comprehensive maternal services and professional training for medical students and resident doctors in the state.

According to Fabamwo, the hospital performs normal routine low risk and high-risk deliveries associated with pregnancies at its intensive care facility.

“We participate in the normal routine deliveries of cases that are low risk essentially to cater for the training of student midwives who come here from some of the universities that we have partnerships with.

“But over and beyond that, more importantly, is our high-risk cases, which is essentially what we deal with as a number of general hospitals and private hospitals refer high-risk cases to us to manage.

“Because in this hospital, we can offer multidisciplinary care. If a patient needs a cardiologist or other specialists, we can easily call them in because we are all in the same premises.

“So cases that need multidisciplinary care, advanced care all benefit from timely interventions and that has helped the state in reducing maternal morbidity and mortality,” he said