Birthing Kits - providing a clean and safe birth

Living Child Inc is a charitable organisation that has developed out of a response to the stories of suffering from the people in remote villages of the Keram River area in Angoram District, and the East Sepik Province in Papua New Guinea.

Women and babies are dying at an alarming rate, access to health services is challenging and costly, and there are few trained health professionals. Men are left widowers and children left motherless. BKFA have partnered with Living Child Inc. with the aim of strengthening maternal and newborn health services in these regions.

In November 2021, Living Child Inc. staff travelled to a remote community and held focus groups with the Village Birth Attendants (VBA) to receive feedback on their needs and experiences. Individuals from the community see the Birthing Kits as a key resource, and staff were happy to provide us with the following anecdotes from the Field.

“Sometimes we are not able to go to a labour ward when assisting women in giving birth, and instead we go to the bush. It is here we use the clean birthing kits, however when it’s an emergency we just use anything like leaf, or women give birth on the grass. Sometimes we feel happy to do our job, but sometimes we are not happy to do the job because we attend to mothers who deliver in the bush. This is dangerous and sometimes life is lost.”

“I am one of the VBA who was not close to the health centre. I live faraway in a village called Longuk. Sometimes when a mother goes into labour, I have no birthing kits so I just put the leaf on the ground and they give birth. If there is no blade to cut the umbilical cord, I sharpen bamboo and then cut it”.

“We thank you, you brought birthing kits to us and we use them for pregnant mothers. When we use these, it helps to save the lives of mothers. For that we are thankful”.

Photos provided by Living Child Inc.

Dullassa is one of the least developed and most remote places in the Afar Region in Ethiopia. It is located in the southerly district of the Region, where for part of the year, the roads are inaccessible due to floods. The communities are highly illiterate leaving them very bound to traditional culture, with issues such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), early marriages and related practices still very prevalent.

The communities are subservient to the highland commercial farming production on their land, and many individuals do not enter into daily labour for an income. In the last 12 months their livelihoods have further declined through market isolation, cost of inflation, previous malnutrition due to livestock loss in drought, and the men of the district participating in the conflicts facing the region with the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).This has caused undue tension and uncertainty in the region and on livelihoods.

The fourth year of the project commenced in July 2021, and concluded this month - June 2022. Your donations have helped to contribute to the outcomes below. 

New figues will be released soon, however as of early this year the following activities were carried out:

• All planned training was carried out and the project implementers equipped - 10 Women Extension Workers (WEW), 3 Community Health Workers (CHWs), 10 Literacy Facilitators (LFs), 50 traditional birthing attendants (TBAs) and community development committees in each of the 10 sites
• A total of 172 deliveries were supported: 91 at home deliveries, 76 referred to Dullassa Health Centre (76 deliveries) and 5 were referred to Mohammad Akkale Hospital. Unfortunately, 3 newborn deaths were reported and 2 stillbirths.
• The 10 WEWs and the 3 CHWs performed 230 antenatal checks and 93 postnatal checks.
• The 3 CHWs treated a total of 1,279 people of whom 30.17% were reproductive aged females Health education was given to 5,984 people on all issues including preventing the spread of coronavirus, maternal health care, preventing harmful practices and other disease preventing disease transmission.
• The 10 WEWs reported giving 7,622 messages in 6 months raising awareness on stopping FGM and early marriage as well as giving awareness on getting assistance for and stopping gender based violence.
• Literacy was taught in 10 project sites, to 609 students of whom 51.3% are females

Ahadi is a young woman who lives in one of the communities in which BKFA support, and is now a Trained Birth Attendant. She says this is the first time women and girls have understood their rights and how they should be protected within society. Ahadi also works with 5 other trained TBAs from her community, all of who are trained on the harmful practices, safe motherhood and family planning.

After the educational programs delivered in the past two years, she tells us that more people are willing to discuss and share stories of women and girls who have suffered. The community has reached a point where the closing of the vaginal area after the birth is not done, and the cutting has reduced to the clitoris and the remaining perineum is not closed. She works with 5 mothers who have not allowed any type of FGM on their children. She’s encouraging the mothers to convince other families. She tries to be at all births to know if the baby is a boy or a girl, and uses opportunities such as weddings or school visits to talk to young girls and boys about the dangers of FGM as well as forced marriages.

Ahadi is very happy to be a WEW and being able to see how things are changing for the future. Men are helping women have support during the deliveries; taking them to the Dullassa Health Center when there's risks and problems such as bleeding. It has been two years and there has not been any maternal death in her community.