KINGSTON, Jamaica — Minister of Health and Wellness, Christopher Tufton, is urging pregnant women to embrace healthier lifestyle practices and attend regular check-ups, stressing that early intervention is key to ensuring the well-being of both mother and child.

Tufton made the appeal on Friday while speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony for the new Ocho Rios and Brown’s Town Health Centres in St Ann, amid heightened public attention following recent reports of infant deaths at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital.

“We really need to get (maternal mortality) down to about seventy or eighty per 100,000 births based on the World Health Organization standards,” Tufton said. “We have work to do, but we’re moving in the right direction.”

He revealed that maternal mortality, which spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 to about 200 deaths per 100,000 births, fell to approximately 130 per 100,000 births last year. Despite the improvement, Tufton acknowledged that Jamaica still has a long way to go.

Tufton cited hypertension, obesity, cardiac disease, sickle cell, sepsis, and thromboembolism as leading contributors to high-risk pregnancies, noting that many of these conditions are linked to lifestyle.

“We’re not blaming anybody for anything let me be very clear,” he stressed. “We have to educate, inform, and encourage our families, mothers, and their partners to seek help early at least to ensure they are experiencing a normal and healthy pregnancy.”

He emphasised that primary health care must be strengthened to better serve communities, particularly when it comes to maternal and child health.

Tuftan shared that premature birth can be caused by several factors many of which can be managed with early detection and proper clinical care.

The construction of the new health centres in Ocho Rios and Brown’s Town is part of the government’s broader initiative to build a more efficient and responsive primary healthcare system across the island.

Video: Akera Davis