Nigeria, April 4 -- It has been over two years, and Lawali Abdullahi still mourns.

From his modest home in Rofia, a riverside community in Agwara LGA, Niger State, the 33-year-old farmer carries the haunting memory of losing his wife, Hadiza.

The mother of his newborn daughter had died aboard a canoe while being ferried across the River Niger to a hospital in Yauri, Kebbi State.

"She had a safe home delivery," Mr Abdullahi told PREMIUM TIMES. "But she started bleeding profusely three weeks after."

Unbeknownst to her family, remnants of the placenta were left inside her womb, a medical condition known as retained placenta, a leading cause of maternal deaths globally.

Experts say it complicates at least two per cent of deliveries and c...