By CHIOMA OBINNA

April 23, 2012 is a day I will live to remember. On that day, I experienced what we usually regard as ordinary malaria. I was away from work for two weeks. The same malaria cost me my unborn baby.

How? She asked. Mummy Bisi, I find it difficult to believe that malaria is that dangerous until it happened to me. It was 12 weeks into my pregnancy when I started feeling weak and pains all over my body. In two days, I was hospitalised. Before I knew it, I had lost the pregnancy I waited eight years for that pregnancy.

Pregnancy loss

What was the verdict of the doctors?  After, various blood tests, I was told I had malaria and already the red blood cells had been infected with the malaria parasite. My baby was also infected.   Despite efforts by the doctors, I had a miscarriage. That is my story till date.   Malaria causes severe, even fatal disease during pregnancy and that is why appropriate strategy to prevent and treat it is vital during pregnancy.

Parasites

Regardless of symptoms, the presence of malaria parasites in a pregnant woman’s body will have a negative impact on her own health and that of her fetus. Every pregnant woman is at high risk of malaria infection. Her baby is also at high risk. There could be complications in the form of anemia, fetal loss, premature delivery, intrauterine growth retardation, and delivery of low birth-weight infants – a risk factor for death.    It is a particular problem for women in their first and second pregnancies and for women who are HIV-positive.

Why pregnant women are more at risk

However, because of the changes in women’s immune systems during pregnancy and the presence of a new organ (the placenta) with new places for parasites to bind, pregnant women lose some of their immunity to malaria infection.  Preventing and treating malaria in pregnancy can be a key intervention to improving maternal, fetal and child health globally.

Management

A pregnant woman during a prenatal consultation receives Fansidar (Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine) use of insecticide-treated bed nets intermittent preventive treatment, IPTp, (for women in high malaria transmission areas. Women should also receive iron/folate supplementation to protect them against anemia, a common occurrence among all pregnant women. IPTp entails administration of a curative dose of an effective antimalarial drug (currently sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine) to all pregnant women whether or not they are infected with malaria parasite. IPTp should be given at each routine antenatal care visit, starting in the second trimester.

Prevention

Pregnant women should sleep under Insecticide-treated nets, ITNs.   Intermittent preventive treatment – to pregnant women should be part of the routine antenatal care, using and strengthening the existing antenatal care infrastructure.