ABSTRACT
The rate of death of our children attracts concern from every Nigerian.
It is clear that the only way to wipe out a race is to cut
its means of future reproduction which is the children and this children
are believed to be our future presidents, governors etc and the ensure
older generation of a better tomorrow.
Infant morality have a considerable significance on demography.
The level of death rate in early life has been described as
a crucial test of the health service and special progress of a country.
The young child’s life is wholly dependent on the care of
mothers. It is base on this that the government through the ministry of
health fights to ensure that all the preventable childhood disease that
leads to infant deaths the reduced to most minimal level. This gave
way to the introduction of Expanded programme on immunization (EPI) and
ORAL Dehydration Therapy (ORT). These programmes are aimed at teaching
parents on how to make salt, sugar, water as oral drip to cure diarrhea
and to immunize poliomyelitis, small pox, chicken pox, whooping cough
and tuberculosis.
Ever since the introduction of these programmes, great lots
have been achieved by reducing the number of infants death. This
instigated my writing this project.
With the data I collected from park-lane general hospital, Enugu on the number of infants death and sex distribution.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Infant mortality is mostly caused by diseases and these diseases are
due to the prevalence of parasite hosts in certain areas. It is
believed that year, thousands of children are born in this country and
thousands of these children die from diseases such as diphtheria,
whooping cough, tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles and childhood
tuberculosis.
This is stated in a pamphlet on Expanded Programme on
Immunization (EPI) published by the Federal Epidemiological unit,
Federal Ministry of Health, Lagos, 1981.
Children’s development and survival are influenced by a
number of factors which include environmental sanitation, most of all
nutrition and parents lack of awareness some children are malnourished
due to the fact that their parents do not know what constitutes a
balanced diet for. They lack the knowledge of what helps the children
to grow normally and build up strong immunity against such diseases that
emanate from under – nourished diet. Some parents are illiterate and
ignorant, that is why in some remote areas of the country children die
out of carelessness and parent ignorance.
Ignorance, in the sense that some parents do not know or
observe the programme introduced by the ministry of Health to ward – off
those six killer diseases which is Expanded Programme on Immunization
(EPI), presently, the government of Nigeria has carried out a national
expanded programme on immunization (EPI) to control these six childhood
diseases throughout the federation.
Although, Nigeria has been declared small pox free
surveillance against the disease is still being maintained. Government
should be commended on their efforts to create awareness on the side of
the parent and their effort to ward off these diseases, thereby reducing
the infant deaths in the country.
More can be done also by educating the parents o how to
maintain good environmental hygiene ad nutritional standard of their
diet so as to rear healthy children.
Actually, the rate of infant mortality motivated me to
carry out a research on this project topic and also suggest ways which
can reduce the rate of infant mortality.
1.1 AIMS AND OBEJCTIVES
The aims and objectives of this project are as following
1. To determine the ratio of males to females death, among infants less than 1 year.
2. To determine whether infant mortality is greater tan the
standard range for infant, mortality which is (10-55) deaths per every
1000.
3. To determine if mortality is independent of sex of a child.
4. To determine if the mean mortality for male and female infants are the same.
5. To suggest possible preventive measures to reduce the number of infant deaths that occur.