Pregnant Nigerian women need faster access to hospitals – technology helped us calculate travel times
NIGERIA contributes 28% of the 280,000 maternal deaths and about 10% of almost two million stillbirths that occur annually across the globe. Evidence shows significantly higher odds of maternal deaths in urban Nigeria than in rural areas, especially in the south, due to poor road infrastructure, haphazardly built environments, traffic congestion and expanding informal settlements. According to research published in 2019, 82.5% of stillbirths in Nigeria occurred in urban areas. I am a maternal health expert and co-authored two studies using Google Maps to accurately calculate travel time to obstetric care facilities in urban Nigeria. Over 50% of maternal deaths…