Birthing Kits - providing a clean and safe birth

60 million women give birth each year with the assistance of a Traditional Birth Attendant or with no assistance at all.

The United Nations (W.H.O.) estimates that 385,000 women die annually in childbirth. Developing countries account for 99% of these deaths. For every woman who dies in childbirth, another 30 women incur injuries and infections – many of which are often painful, disabling, embarrassing and lifelong.

BKFA works with many grass-root organisations in remote locations to help ensure that more women can access a cleaner and safer birth environment.

One such partner is Think Humanity in Uganda.

“In 2009 while giving out mosquito nets in a very remote village in a refugee camp, a pregnant Congolese woman came up to Beth from Think Humanity. She did not speak English and she asked for a translator.

Tearfully she began to tell the story. Just that week her pregnant friend, Esther had gone to the camp clinic to deliver her first child. She was turned away because she did not have a plastic sheet or a “mama kit.”

Later they found her dead in the bush with her deceased baby lying alongside her.

Beth heard that these stories were all too common in refugee camps in Uganda.

When she returned to the USA, she searched online for birthing kits and e-mailed two organizations.

Being exhausted from traveling for two days, she went to bed. That next morning Beth woke to a positive response from Birthing Kit Foundation Australia.”

This partnership has given hope to refugee women. Women like Esther no longer will be turned away to die, scared and alone in the bush.

The partnership between Think Humanity and BKFA is only possible due to generous donations from the public. In order to continue the creation and distribution of birthing kits, BKFA needs big-hearted supporters. For every $3 you donate, one more birthing kit can be distributed to women in need and the loss of women like Esther can help to be prevented.

Links:

• How to help

Thank you, your donation has given new direction and hope to women and babies in DR Congo, a country rated 186 out of 187 on the WHO Human Development Index.

DR Congo is desperate and your donation is saving lives.

This country does not have the capacity to provide women in remote regions with a trained health professional. The women and babies are fortunate if they can have a Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) at the birth. Our role has been to educate 900 of these TBAs as much as is possible to give these women the best chance they can to survive.

July 2014 in Uvira, South Kivu Province, the very first Train the Trainer program in DR Congo was organised by our partner Dr Luc Mulimbalimba Masururu.

Here 4 trained Seminar Teachers taught 18 qualified health professional from 3 provinces of South Kivu, North-Kivu and Shaba (Katanga) over 3 weeks of training in non-literate education techniques of Traditional Birth Attendants. 2 health professionals were selected from each of the following Districts, Uvira, Fizi, Mwenga, Nyiragongo, Beni, Shabunda, Kalemie, Malemba Nkulu, and Bukama. After training 4000 Birthing Kits were dispensed between the participants.

In a country haunted by war, where rape is endemic and tragedy abounds the training includes the basics in rape and sexual violence counselling, HIV/Aids counselling as well as the usual topics of prenatal and postnatal care, how to use a birthing kit, how to use local items when a birthing kit is not available, recognition of danger signs in the pregnancy when a woman should be transported to a health clinic and many general health and midwifery topics.

Dr Luc reported “Our objective is for the training of trainer’s teachers to be able to train 78 communities in the three provinces, an approximate of 10 about 780-1500 traditional midwives and community health workers in a year. Lastly they will be involved in reducing poverty and promoting community development in their various villages.”

“We thank very much Birthing Kit Foundation (Australia) for supporting this program and we request that it not be the last, as the participants requested, it will be good to have the same program every year because we still have many districts with no health care facilities and whom this program may help a lot.”

There are now 3 provinces where the TBAs will have ongoing training and it is planned to expand the training into several other provinces over the next few years.

Funding of our expansion program in this most needy country is a high priority.

Our belief is that “no woman should die giving life”.

Links:

• BKFA June 2015 newsletter