Mobile health teams have begun visiting farming villages around Jowhar to offer antenatal check-ups for pregnant women, in an effort to reach families who live hours away from the nearest maternity ward.

Each team, made up of a midwife, a nurse and a community health worker, travels by four-wheel-drive vehicle and sets up for the day in a school, a mosque compound or a shaded open space. Women are weighed, have their blood pressure checked and are screened for anaemia, while young children are measured for signs of malnutrition and offered routine vaccinations.

A midwife with one of the teams said many of the women seen so far had not had a single check-up during their pregnancy. "Distance and the cost of transport keep people at home until there is an emergency," she said. "If we find a problem early, we can refer the mother before it becomes dangerous."

Women identified as high-risk are given referral letters to the regional hospital in Jowhar, and the teams record contact numbers so that community health workers can follow up before the expected delivery date. The teams rotate between villages so that each location is visited roughly once a month.

Elders in one settlement along the Shabelle River said residents had welcomed the visits, but warned that seasonal flooding often cuts roads during the rainy months. Organisers said they planned to store supplies in larger villages so that the teams can keep working when some routes are closed.

A regional health official said the programme would be reviewed after its first six months, looking in particular at how many women return for follow-up visits and how many births take place with a trained health worker present. Health workers said the longer-term aim is to encourage more families to plan clinic or hospital births well ahead of time.

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