By Jon Hillery | Senior Associate
AmeriCares is dedicated to increasing health care access for expectant mothers, newborns and young children throughout Liberia. Last month, we continued our training program for nurses and midwives at two health clinics in Liberia and partnered with the Liberian Government Hospital to conduct educational outreach sessions for new mothers.
The first training was led by Toks, AmeriCares midwife-nurses trainer, at the Zondo health clinic. The two-day, onsite training focused on improving skills such as basic emergency obstetric and newborn care, as well as active management of the stages of labor for mothers giving birth at the clinic.
Toks led a second training at the John Logan Service Delivery Point, which addressed issues for nurses who will be examining pregnant women, midwifery skills during and following birth and patient mentoring and coaching.
Alice, one of the midwives at the health center was grateful for the increased training. “I had never used a partograph (a tool used to monitor labor) before, I had no training…I can now use it effectively,” she said. “Thank you!”
AmeriCares also led community education sessions about the importance and benefits of breast feeding. Breast feeding is not widely practiced in Liberia, as most mothers do not have sufficient knowledge on the benefits for the child, particularly soon after birth. AmeriCares conducted education sessions around the practice, potential issues babies might have in breast feeding and how mothers can identify and seek help for any difficulties shown by their child.
A follow up “community conversation session” was held at the Zondo clinic for those in the community who wanted to participate. The session focused on issues such as newborn care, referral of pregnant mothers to the clinic, immunization options and spacing of pregnancies and births. Community leaders, health volunteers and mothers from the area all took part in the session.
Involving the community in the new and improved services offered by local health clinics is absolutely vital in increasing the quality of care and accessibility for the population. AmeriCares is so thankful for your support of this project—we could not do it without you!
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