Birthing Kits - providing a clean and safe birth

The Clean Birth Kit Program

Around 300,000 women die from preventable causes during pregnancy and childbirth each year and a further 2.5 million babies die within the first 4 weeks of life. These rates are far higher in low and middle-income countries, where poverty and gender inequality is often coupled with a lack of access to health care.  

Huge disparities in the level of maternal and neonatal mortality persist across regions and counties of our world today.  It is this inequality that is the driving force behind our Clean Birth Kit Program.  

Our Clean Birth Kits are simple and effective tools for basic infection prevention and first-line childbirth care. Each component has been selected to support the 6 principles of cleanliness at birth for mothers, newborns, and birth attendants in high-risk and emergency settings. Each kit contains:

• Soap to wash the birth attendant’s hands and the mother’s perineum.
• A plastic Sheet to provide a hygienic surface for the mother to birth her baby.
• Gloves to cover the birth attendant’s hands and provide protection from infections such as HIV for carers and care recipients.
• Gauze to wipe clear the newborn baby’s eyes, and to clean the mother’s perineum prior to giving birth.
• Cord ties to cleanly tie the umbilical cord.
• A sterile blade to cut the umbilical cord cleanly and reduce risk of newborn tetanus and infection.

The current global need for birthing kits is high. According to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, “(a) decade on from the Clean Birth Kits Policy Briefing, the six cleans are now more important than ever to keep mothers and babies safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, some of our global partners have reported that there is an increased need for the distribution of CBKs, due to restricted movement (lockdown) and their inability to travel to heath facilities.

Links:

• Donate here