Answer

Based on the previous article by Caroli Rooney, there could be other arguments conflicting the notion that prenatal care could be the panacea to maternal mortality. In the said article titled “How effective is antenatal care in preventing maternal mortality and serious morbidity? An overview of the evidence,” the article makes the case for prenatal care as an effective mechanism of reducing or solving maternal mortality. However, prenatal care is not absolutely affective and leaves room for more deaths during childbirth. So many factors have changed since 2001, the year when the article was published and thus prenatal care could not be as effective as at the time when the author wrote and published the article. But even then, the article also acknowledges in other instances that there has not been sufficient research to establish the effectiveness of prenatal care in curbing or reducing maternal mortality. 

First, there has not been a sustained research and study on the role of prenatal care in curbing maternal mortality. Even though the article by Carroli Rooney argued that Prenatal care in effective in reducing maternal mortality, it also contends that how it achieves the same remains largely unclear. She argues that, “The role that pregnancy care, as distinct from delivery care, has played in this dramatic decline in maternal mortality in the developed world is not clear” (Carroli, pg.). The article goes ahead to state “There is, however, a notable lack of comprehensive and critical reviews of the effectiveness of antenatal care programs and/or of individual interventions during pregnancy to avert maternal death or severe morbidity” (Carroli, pg.). Carroli contends that a writer provided an article that proved the effectiveness of prenatal care on reducing maternal mortality but faced several feedbacks and responses concerning the ideas that the article contained. Carroli writes, “An article challenging aspects of routine care that do, or could improve maternal survival provoked responses from many parts of the world. Solutions were suggested but no firm evidence put forward for the most pressing local problems, which included anemia, hypertensive diseases of pregnancy (HDP) and unwanted pregnancy” (Carroli, pg.) In the absence of such verifiable and credible studies, it becomes difficult to ascertain whether such prenatal care services are effective in curbing maternal mortality. It is however arguable that some of the prenatal care services could be helpful, not in reducing maternal mortality but in improve the maternal health. As such, lack of sufficient studies and research on the said is reason enough to discredit the place of prenatal care in reducing maternal mortality rates. 

The little research or attempts to establish the effectiveness of prenatal care have yielded unsatisfactory results. According to Carroli Rooney, “Although numerous assessments of various aspects of antenatal care in developing countries were identified, many of these did not provide any useful information on the effectiveness of the care being provided” (Carroli, pg.) However, the writer argues that so many reasons might have led to such findings. For instance, the article postulates that “Some studies only set out to measure the process (availability, uptake, number of visits, etc.) of the services and not health outcomes. Others measured various aspects of ‘quality’, including the percentage of attendees who received particular tests or treatment, or who were seen before a given point in their pregnancies” (Carroli, pg.) Also, to further strengthen the above argument, Carroli Rooney adds that “The scale of many studies is too small, so they lack the statistical power to show an effect on important outcomes. Adverse maternal outcomes are uncommon events, and results from many centers may need to be pooled to obtain a clear answer” (Carroli, pg. ) Accordingly, the intended result is only achievable where there are several studies of similar nature with consist finding. 

In conclusion, the effectiveness of prenatal care in curbing or reducing maternal mortality is not absolute considering there are several shortcomings to such hypothesis. For instance, there is insufficient research or studies concerning the same. Under such circumstances, it would only be speculative to assume that prenatal care is effective in curbing or reducing maternal mortality. Accordingly, such conclusions need to be supported by concreate and verifiable evidence that can only come from thorough and effective studies on the same, without which anything else is propaganda. Secondly, the little research on the effectiveness of prenatal care towards curbing maternal mortality have yielded unsatisfactory results. According to this essay, so many reasons might have contributed to the same as it explains above. Given, the above arguments, it not easy to conclude that prenatal care reduces maternal mortality rates.