It said efforts of the GHS to promote and encourage all pregnant women in the district to access antenatal and postnatal services at health facilities was a move in the right direction and pledged their support to complement the move.

Mrs Alice Abongo, a leading member, made the pledge on behalf of the Association at a Community Durbar organised by the Integrated Youth Needs and Welfare (INTYON), a Non-Governmental Organisation, at Dua in the Bongo District.

She said the campaign would help reduce the number of maternal and neonatal deaths in the district.

The durbar, which was funded by UNICEF under the Mother Baby Friendly Health Facility (MBHI) Project, attracted Chiefs, Assemblymen and women, Women Groups of the Ghana Red Cross, and women groups from the community.

The two-year project is being piloted in three countries namely Ghana, Bangladesh and Tanzania to promote exclusive breast feeding and encourage pregnant women and lactating mothers to access regular antenatal and postnatal care to help reduce infant and neonatal deaths.

Mr Bentin Cabral, the Focal Person of the MBHI project, said through effective partnership with organisations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and UNICEF, the project was being implemented in the Kassena-Nankana West, Bongo, Bawku and the Bolgatanga Municipalities of the Upper East Region.

“The two-year project has interventions including advocacy and focus group discussions to ensure increase demand for ante-natal and post-natal services, early initiation to breast feeding within 30 minutes after birth, exclusive breastfeeding and promoting basic new-born care”, he added.

He said the INTYON had organised sensitization programmes using community mobilization, focus group discussions, drama, advocacy programmes for traditional rulers, religious leaders, pregnant women, mothers of newborn babies, husbands and community leaders to help achieve the National Newborn Strategy and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Mr Issah Ibrahim, the Chief Executive Officer of INTYON, charged all stakeholders particularly men to accompany their wives during pregnancy and at delivery to the health facilities to access health care services.

He appealed to the government and the Assembly to expand the Gulkprgu-Dung-Yelpalsinaa Health Centre, to enable it to accommodate the increasing number of women who visited the facility for health services.