JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter-In­ves­tiga­tive

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

As the coun­try wel­comed eight ba­bies on Christ­mas Day yes­ter­day, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh ad­mit­ted that the coun­try’s fer­til­i­ty rate is be­low the in­ter­na­tion­al rate.

Speak­ing with the me­dia at the Mt Hope Women’s Hos­pi­tal, where the coun­try’s first three Christ­mas ba­bies were born, Deyals­ingh said the de­clin­ing pop­u­la­tion was a glob­al trend.

“The birth rates in Trinidad and To­ba­go have been de­clin­ing over the years. It’s a con­cern glob­al­ly. What you’re see­ing is de­clin­ing birth rates among in­dus­tri­alised coun­tries. The more in­dus­tri­alised, the wealth­i­er the coun­try be­comes, birth rates start to de­cline. So, we are now down to less than about 13,000 live births per year,” Deyals­ingh said.

He said with women mak­ing the de­ci­sion to de­lay preg­nan­cies and re­duce the num­ber of chil­dren they have, it is con­tribut­ing to the de­clin­ing birth rate. The re­place­ment rate, he aid, which al­lows for a coun­try’s pop­u­la­tion to re­main at ex­ist­ing lev­els, is 2.1 births per woman in a coun­try. T&T, how­ev­er, has a rate of 1.9.

In keep­ing with that trend, the first Christ­mas Day moth­er, Camille Di­az, said she was done with hav­ing chil­dren.

Di­az, 21, has a two-year-old son and gave birth to an­oth­er boy at 12.09 am. The boy, who is yet to be giv­en a name, weighed sev­en pounds and 13 ounces.

Like Di­az, La­toya Her­nan­dez said she too was on­ly hav­ing two chil­dren. Af­ter giv­ing birth to a boy at 1.36 am, who will be named Al­i­jah Best, Her­nan­dez said now that she has a boy and a six-year-old girl, she is done with hav­ing chil­dren.

The third child born at Mt Hope was a boy, yet to be named by his moth­er Daniel­la Cud­joe. The child came at 2.27 am. Cud­joe was the fifth moth­er over­all, Health Min­istry of­fi­cials said.

The Health Min­is­ter said the re­duced birth rate was not a re­flec­tion of in­creased abor­tion rates ei­ther. He ex­plained that as coun­tries move away from agri­cul­ture-based so­ci­eties, the need for mul­ti­ple chil­dren to have able bod­ied peo­ple to work the fields de­creased.

Deyals­ingh al­so heaped prais­es on the nurs­es, who he said im­ple­ment­ed pol­i­cy to the point that for the first time in years, the coun­try had record­ed ze­ro ma­ter­nal deaths.

“In 2023, to date, we have had no ma­ter­nal deaths. Ab­solute­ly none. And that mes­sage keeps get­ting lost in na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion. We nev­er get the cred­it for that. But as I say, one bad thing hap­pens and that’s the head­line to­mor­row. So, I want to cred­it them with the work that they have done,” he said.

Deyals­ingh said the ma­ter­nal death rates have been steadi­ly de­clin­ing since 2016, with this year be­ing the first with no ma­ter­nal deaths. He said he could not re­call the last time this was so, adding that just last year there were two ma­ter­nal deaths which were linked to COVID-19.

“What we are try­ing to do is to re­duce our ma­ter­nal mor­tal­i­ty rates due to known fac­tors, es­pe­cial­ly pa­tient fac­tors. And what we are al­so do­ing is en­cour­ag­ing moth­ers to breast­feed their chil­dren from as soon as pos­si­ble.”

He added that be­cause of a breast­feed­ing pol­i­cy launched in 2020, the breast­feed­ing rate went from 10 per cent to 95 per cent. He said this was the first step in the fight against non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs).

Christ­mas Day births:

1. At the NCRHA, Camille Di­az gave birth to a son at 2.09 am

2. At the NCRHA, La­toya Her­nan­dez birthed her son at 1.36 am

3. At the SWRHA, Danielle Jarvis gave birth to a daugh­ter at 1.53am

4. At the ER­HA, Saf­fiyah Singh birthed her son at 2.06 am

5. At the NCRHA, Daniel­la Cud­joe gave birth to her son at 2.27am

6. At the NWRHA, Ma­li­ni Singh gave birth to her son via C-sec­tion at 3.08 am

7. At the NWRHA, April St Rose gave birth to her daugh­ter at 6.51 am

8. At the TRHA, Pre­cious Samuel gave birth to her at 10.35 am.