Kenya’s maternal mortality ratio remains more than five times the Sustainable Development Goal target for 2030. A Bill before Parliament seeks to put maternal, newborn and child health obligations into law. Here’s what it proposes, and what it cannot achieve on its own.
Kenya’s maternal mortality ratio stands at 355 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the Ministry of Health’s current baseline, more than five times the Sustainable Development Goal target of fewer than 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030.
The country also records 21 neonatal deaths for every 1,000 live births, according to the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey and the Ministry’s current maternal and newborn health baseline.
Many maternal and newborn deaths are preventable with timely, quality care. For newborns, major causes include complications associated with prematurity, birth asphyxia and infections. For mothers, timely access to quality antenatal, delivery and emergency obstetric care can help prevent deaths from complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
It is against this backdrop that Parliament is considering the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Bill, 2023, formally known as Senate Bill No. 17 of 2023.
Sponsored by Senator Beatrice Ogolla and published on May 5, 2023, the Bill seeks to establish a coordinated legal framework for delivering quality maternal, newborn and child health services and responding to maternal and child illness and death.
Women who are not pregnant would be entitled to family planning and pre-conception care
At the centre of the proposal is a right to maternal, newborn and child health services delivered with courtesy, dignity and respect.
The Bill also seeks to protect people seeking these services from discrimination based on factors such as age, disability, marital status, health status, ethnicity, religion, culture, or language.
It sets out different services for different groups. Women who are not pregnant would be entitled to family planning and pre-conception care. Pregnant women would receive services covering pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period, as well as breastfeeding support.
For children up to 12 years, the proposed framework covers newborn care, immunisation, growth monitoring and referral for specialised services. The Bill also calls for additional attention to adolescents, people living with disabilities, people with mental health needs and people from marginalised communities.
These provisions are intended to turn maternal, newborn and child health from a collection of programmes and policies into a framework with legally defined rights and responsibilities.
Because health service delivery is largely devolved, implementing the proposed law would involve both levels of government, with different responsibilities.
The national government would be responsible for functions including developing policies and standards, mobilising resources, establishing monitoring systems and providing regulatory direction.
County governments, which are responsible for most frontline health service delivery, would implement national policies locally and run programmes including immunisation and nutrition. The Bill also proposes national and county electronic health platforms and annual reporting requirements.
The idea is to create a chain of accountability, from individual health facilities to county governments and the national government
At facility level, health providers would be required to maintain maternal, newborn and child health registers and records. These would provide information for monitoring services, identifying gaps and improving care.
The idea is to create a chain of accountability, from individual health facilities to county governments and the national government. The Bill contains provisions creating offences and penalties for certain forms of non-compliance.
However, the precise obligations and penalties depend on the version of the Bill currently before Parliament and the amendments made during its passage. The Bill should therefore not be presented as guaranteeing a particular outcome simply because it establishes a legal duty.
Its significance would ultimately depend on whether government has the resources, staff, medicines, equipment, infrastructure and systems required to fulfil those duties. That distinction matters because passing a law does not automatically translate into better care at a maternity ward.
The proposed legislation is being considered as Kenya is already implementing a separate national effort to reduce preventable maternal and newborn deaths.
The Bill would establish a legal framework for maternal, newborn and child health
In 2026, the Ministry of Health launched the Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere (EWENE) Acceleration Plan, a 2026–2028 roadmap aimed at accelerating action on maternal and newborn health.
The plan uses the same baseline of 355 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births and 21 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births, but sets nearer-term targets for 2028: reducing maternal mortality to 140 deaths per 100,000 live births or fewer and neonatal mortality to 12 deaths per 1,000 live births or fewer.
The plan includes interventions around financing, health commodities, family planning, the health workforce, quality of care and accountability.
The Ministry has also committed resources to maternal healthcare through the Social Health Authority and outlined measures including additional recruitment of nurses and midwives and increased investment in maternal health commodities.
This creates an important distinction between the Bill and the EWENE plan. EWENE is an implementation roadmap. The Bill would establish a legal framework for maternal, newborn and child health. If enacted, the law could provide a statutory basis for some of the rights, responsibilities, reporting and accountability mechanisms that currently operate through policies and programmes.
But the law alone cannot recruit a midwife, stock a blood bank, repair an ambulance or ensure that a woman in labour reaches an equipped facility in time.
For now, the Bill remains one part of a wider effort to address maternal and newborn deaths
The Bill has already travelled through the Senate, where it was passed with amendments on October 8, 2024, before being referred to the National Assembly. It was first read in the National Assembly on November 12, 2024, and referred to the Departmental Committee on Health.
Members of Parliament began debating it at Second Reading in October 2025, with debate continuing into November. The Bill subsequently moved to the Committee Stage in March 2026, where detailed consideration of its provisions takes place.
It has therefore not become law. That means its proposed rights, duties and penalties are not yet legally binding. For now, the Bill remains one part of a wider effort to address maternal and newborn deaths, alongside existing health policies, county-level services, the Social Health Authority and the Ministry’s EWENE acceleration plan.
The central question is not simply whether Kenya needs another maternal health policy. It is whether putting maternal, newborn and child health obligations into legislation would strengthen accountability for delivering services that already form part of the country’s health commitments.
The Bill would create a framework for rights, responsibilities, monitoring and reporting. EWENE, meanwhile, provides a more immediate implementation plan with defined targets and interventions.
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