Reducing Maternal and Child Mortality in West Africa Improve Health Indicators for Mother and Child Well Being

World Health Organization provides reliable information about health performance of countries around the global. In most of their periodical data, sub Saharan Africa kept performing poorly in relation to most health indicators such as maternal mortality, child mortality, HIV AIDS rate, health financing, vaccination coverage for under 1year child and others. A major challenge in the health indicators is the high Total Fertility Rate of West African countries, with some countries recording Total Fertility Rate of six children per woman in her reproductive age. Many researchers have focused in Total Fertility reduction as a way of reducing the poor quality of health in West Africa, but fertility control efforts have not yielded the needed outcomes, as usage of contraceptives in the region is not encouraging. This study used World Health Organizations statistics data for 2017 to established the fact that Maternal and Infant Mortality can be reduced not only by reducing the high Total Fertility Rate but also by increasing the yearly expenditure on health, increasing vaccination coverage, increase the number of skilled birth attendants, while providing other needed health inputs. The paper revealed significant association between total fertility rate and maternal mortality, child mortality and stunting growth of children. The positive association between total fertility and other variables show the high total fertility rate is impacting negatively on the other variables. Hence the need to control fertility rate in West Africa as it will lead to heath systems improvement in the region. Ahotovi Thomas Ahoto | Lokmani Giri | Stanley Kofi Alor "Reducing Maternal and Child Mortality in West Africa: Improve Health Indicators for Mother and Child Well-Being" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-5 , August 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd33033.pdf Paper Url :https://www.ijtsrd.com/other-scientific-research-area/other/33033/reducing-maternal-and-child-mortality-in-west-africa-improve-health-indicators-for-mother-and-child-wellbeing/ahotovi-thomas-ahoto