CleanBirth - Saving Mothers and Babies in Laos

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Yoga in New Haven, CT to Fund Clean Birth Kits

Looking for a Yoga Class in New Haven CT?  Choose a class that saves lives.

CleanBirth.org founder Kristyn Zalota offers yoga classes at The Fitness Haven in New Haven, CT.

Classes

Tuesdays, 6:30am.  Beginner & Intermediate.  Moderate Intensity. Stretch and Strengthen.

Sundays, 6:30pm.  All Levels.  Gentle Intensity.  Totally relax and restore the mind and body.

Workshops

Yoga & Lamaze® for Expecting Parents

Join Kristyn Zalota, East Rock mom, Prenatal Yoga Instructor, Doula, & Childbirth Educator, for an afternoon of building skills for birthing.

This hands-on class will shows moms and dads specific ways to improve your birthing experience.

We will explore:

♥   Yoga poses to prepare your body

♥   Stages of normal birth

♥   Types of movement during labor

♥   The father’s vital birthing role

♥   Comfort measures (e.g. massage)

♥   Relaxation and breathing

When: June 24, 2012, 4-6pm

Where: The Fitness Haven, Corner of State and Bishop

Register:  Call 203-562-2833 or Online:  www.thefitnesshaven.com

$75 million for Maternal Health in Developing World

Sec of State Hillary Clinton announced that the United States will give $75 million to work to improve maternal and infant health in developing countries.  Norway gave $80 million.

Think I can carve out the 6,000 I need for one year providing clean birth kits?

Read more about: “Saving Mothers, Saving Lives”

“It doesn’t focus on a single intervention, but on strengthening health systems to protect mothers when they’re most at risk — during labor, delivery and the 24 hours after birth,” Clinton told the conference.

She said the initiative was beginning with projects in Zambia and Uganda, and would take the most effective lessons drawn from those experiences and apply them in other countries.

The initiative draws from both funds and the experience from the U.S. international AIDS response programs to focus on what proponents say is a key health care challenge with broad implications for societies as a whole.
Countries that have upgraded their health systems have seen maternal mortality rates drop dramatically, while in countries where health care systems have crumbled, maternal mortality rates have shot up, she said.
“Maternal health has value in its own right, and is also deeply connected to a broader purpose: achieving the strong health systems that will help developing countries improve life for more of their people,” Clinton said.
“If you want to know how strong a country’s health system is, look at the well-being of its mothers.”
She stressed that countries must eventually take ownership of their health systems even when they require help from outside.
“We are helping to build clinics and labs, train staff, improve supply chains, make blood supplies safer, set up record-keeping systems — in short, we are creating platforms upon which partners can eventually launch their own efforts,” she said.
Clinton’s call came on the second day of a Scandinavian tour she has used to praise the work of key U.S. partners in a range of global hotspots.
“We don’t have any problems we are confronting, we don’t have any difficult issues we are negotiating. But we have a lot of work ahead of us,” Clinton said earlier in a toast to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.
Clinton, who met earlier with Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere and paid a courtesy call to King Harald V, has used her visit here and to Denmark on May 31 to express appreciation for the role the two NATO allies have played in Afghanistan.
But the trip, which will take her to Sweden over the weekend, has also been overshadowed by U.S. tensions with Russia over its defense of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the face of continuing bloodshed there.
In Copenhagen, she accused Moscow of propping up the Assad regime, helping to push Syria toward a destabilizing civil war, and said she would be paying particular attention to Russia in her talks over the next several days.
“We have to bring the Russians on board because the dangers we face are terrible,” Clinton said.
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, said Moscow would not yield to pressure on Syria.
Besides Syria, Clinton has also spotlighted cooperation with the Scandinavian countries on the environment, including climate change and clean energy, and development issues.
After her meetings, she was to travel to Tromsoe, a city on the Arctic Circle, to discuss the effects of climate change in the potentially energy-rich region.
After Scandinavia, Clinton travels to the Caucasus with stops in Armenia, Georgiaand Azerbaijan before winding up the nine-day trip in Turkey.
Copyright 2012  AFP American Edition

My CBK Project: Introducing Birth Kits for Baby Showers.

Fundraising is officially underway.  I have raised enough money for 60 kits, including shipping and training for community health workers. So excited!

I have also come up with an idea for getting out the word about the kits:  Birth Kits for Baby Showers©.  Instead of a cute favor that is briefly admired and then forgotten about, why not give the gift of life for $5.   Each guest recieves a place card announcing that a donation of a Clean Birth Kit  has been made.  Here are examples of the cards:

Fistula FAQs from Worldwide Fistual Fund

Here’s the more about fistulas from Worldwide Fistula Fund, which performs fistula surgeries on women in southern Niger:

1. WHAT IS OBSTETRIC FISTULA?

Fistula is a medical condition caused by prolonged or obstructed labor. The most common childbirth injuries that occur after obstructed labor are vesicovaginal fistula (VVF) and rectovaginal fistula (RVF). The word “fistula” is a medical term for an abnormal connection between two body organs or cavities. In VVF, the pressure of the fetal head in the pelvis during obstructed labor interrupts the blood flow to the tissues that are being compressed and causes those tissues to die. When the tissues between the bladder and vagina die, a hole opens up between them which allows urine to leak out as soon as it reaches the bladder. In RVF, the same process occurs, but in this case the tissues between the vagina and rectum are destroyed and feces pour out through the vagina.

2. WHO SUFFERS FROM OBSTETRIC FISTULA?

While it is impossible to know exactly how many women suffer from fistulas caused by obstructed labor, it is estimated that between two million to 3.5 million women in the developing world currently suffer from the condition and between 50,000 to 130,000 new cases develop each year. Fistula was common in western countries more than a century ago, but advances in medical care and universal access to emergency obstetric services have eliminated this condition in the industrialized world. Most of the women who have fistula today live in developing countries, where access to obstetric care is limited or nonexistent.

3. WHAT HAPPENS TO WOMEN WHO HAVE THIS CONDITION?

Once a woman sustains a childbirth injury of this kind, there are really very few places where she can go for help. In many parts of the world, women who do find help have waited five years between injury and treatment. By opening up a fistula hospital in Danja, Niger, the Worldwide Fistula Fund is committed to increasing access to care for women with childbirth injuries of this kind.

4. WHAT HAPPENS TO BABIES IN CASES OF OBSTRUCTED LABOR?

Among women who survive obstructed labor and developed an obstetric fistula, fewer than 7-percent have a live baby at the end of their ordeal. Since childbirth injury typically occurs during the mother’s first pregnancy, almost 70-percent of fistula victims end up with no living children. In the developing world, where family is usually one’s only source of security, the lack of children is devastating.

5. HOW DOES THE WORLDWIDE FISTULA FUND HELP?

The Worldwide Fistula Fund helps by performing fistula surgeries on women in southern Niger. Although fistula surgery is very challenging, it can still be performed with a high degree of success in low-technology settings throughout Africa.

6. HOW SUCCESSFUL ARE OBSTETRIC FISTULA SURGERIES?

The surgery to close a VVF is successful in the vast majority of cases but “closure” of the fistula does not necessarily mean that the woman is “cured.” About 15-percent of women whose fistula is closed continue to lose urine due to other problems with the bladder and urethra. Many women who have been through obstructed labor also have other injuries (including nerve damage, partial paralysis and/or traumatic pelvic conditions) that cause tremendous suffering and require ongoing physical therapy to address.

The Value of Community Health Workers

Great article “Realigning Health with Care” in the Summer 2012 Stamford Social Innovation Review.  Among other things, the authors discuss the value of training community health workers.

This is of great interest to me because the correct use of Clean Birth Kits requires that  community health workers (CHW) are trained in their use and distribution.   Then the CHWs train the birth partners (mothers, sisters, friends) who will be present at the birth in birth hygiene and the use of the sterile kits.

Nontraditional medical workers are critical to health systems, especially those in resource-constrained environments. They are less encumbered by competing clinical care priorities, possess firsthand understanding of patient culture, community, and experience, and are often more aware of nonmedical local resources that may improve patient care. Acknowledging that licensed clinicians are not the only health care providers can help health systems become more efficient, effective, and equitable.

PIH, for example, relies on doctors and nurses to provide clinic-or hospital-level care and hires community health workers (CHWs) to distribute food, deliver medicine to patients in remote rural areas, and identify undiagnosed illnesses as well as social needs. CHWs can help health care systems overcome shortages of human and financial resources by providing high-quality, low-cost services to community members in their homes and by diagnosing diseases in their early stages, before they become more dangerous and expensive to treat.

Similarly, in sub-Saharan Africa, Mothers2Mothers trains and employs new mothers with HIV, who work side by side with doctors and nurses in health care facilities and are responsible for ensuring that patients understand and adhere to antiretroviral treatments and other prescribed interventions. These “Mentor Mothers” are a new tier of paid, professional, health care providers—drawn from, trained in, and working for local communities. Evaluations of the program have found that enrolled mothers are more likely to receive and take medications and to undergo tests to determine if they are eligible for antiretroviral treatment and if their babies are infected with HIV.

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