CleanBirth - Saving Mothers and Babies in Laos
CleanBirth.org - Donate $5 Saves 2 Lives
Great day! We made it up and over our tipping point of $4,000 and we are trucking toward the ultimate goal of $7,500!
Of our 54 donors this campaign, 37 are brand new!! So amazing!
To celebrate this Valentine’s Week we are sending an e-card to every donor’s Valentine.
Or how about a card for your mom? How perfect: a mom in Laos gets a safe birth, your mom gets so love!
Donate now and decide who is the lucky recipient: Share the Love! www.startsomegood.com/cleanbirth
Meet Noi. Her name means “Small” but she is doing BIG things for CleanBirth.org.
Noi is an OVA employee tasked with monitoring kits’ usage and organizing our upcoming CleanBirth Volunteer training.
Her presence and continual contact with CleanBirth.org in the US, is invaluable. We now know what is happening and will have data to back up our good intentions.
Your donations enable CleanBirth.org to pay part of her monthly salary.
I was pleased to find this study (see below) looking into hand washing / gloves, clean surface, sterile cord cutting, appropriate cord tying, proper cord care following delivery, and infant bathing and cleanliness.
The study found that while it was generally know that birth should be clean, things like handwashing were not often mentioned in the description of clean birthing practices.
Conclusions: educate healthcare providers about harmful traditional practices (ex. salves put on cord stump), improve birthing facilities, and ally with grandmothers in particular who play a significant role in birthing.
Clean delivery practices in rural northern Ghana: A qualitative study of community and provider knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs systems
Cheryl A Moyer, Raymond A Aborigo, Gideon Logonia, Gideon Affah, Sarah Rominski, Philip B Adongo, John Williams, Abraham Hodgson and Cyril M Engmann
BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 2012, 12:50 doi:10.1186/1471-2393-12-50
Knowledge, attitudes and practices of community members and healthcare providers in rural northern Ghana regarding clean delivery are not well understood. This study explores hand washing / use of gloves during delivery, delivering on a clean surface, sterile cord cutting, appropriate cord tying, proper cord care following delivery, and infant bathing and cleanliness.
In-depth interviews and focus group discussions with community members were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed using NVivo 9.0
253 respondents participated, including women with newborn infants, grandmothers, household and compound heads, community leaders, traditional birth attendants, and formally trained health care providers. There is widespread understanding of the need for clean delivery to reduce the risk of infection to both mothers and their babies during and shortly after delivery. Despite this understanding, the use of gloves during delivery and hand washing during and after delivery were mentioned infrequently. The need for a clean delivery surface was raised repeatedly, including explicit discussion of avoiding delivering in the dirt. Many activities to do with cord care involved non-sterile materials and practices: 1) Cord cutting was done with a variety of tools; the most commonly used were razor blades or scissors; 2) Cord tying utilized a variety of materials, including string, rope, thread, twigs, and clamps; and 3) Cord care often involved applying traditional salves to the cord – including shea butter, ground shea nuts, local herbs, local oil, or “red earth sand.” Keeping babies and their surroundings clean was mentioned repeatedly as an important way to keep babies from falling ill.
This study suggests a widespread understanding in rural northern Ghana of the need for clean delivery. Nonetheless, many recommended clean delivery practices are ignored. Overarching themes emerging from this study included the increasing use of facility-based delivery, the disconnect between healthcare providers and the community, and the critical role grandmothers play in ensuring clean delivery practices. Future interventions to address clean delivery and prevention of neonatal infections include educating healthcare providers about harmful traditional practices so they are specifically addressed, strengthening facilities, and incorporating influential community members such as grandmothers to ensure success.