In Uganda, there is one midwife or midwifery professional for every 36,810 women. Seventy-two percent of households must travel more than one hour to get to the closest public hospital. When asked about their healthcare, only 33% of households believe that medicines are available in public health-care facilities. The Global Acupuncture Project teaches midwives how to use acupuncture to bridge this gap, helping to promote the health of women before, during, and after pregnancy.
In Uganda, there is one doctor for every 7,272 Ugandans and one midwife or midwifery professional for every 36,810 women. Seventy-two percent of households must travel more than one hour to get to the closest public hospital. When asked about their healthcare, only 33% of households believe that medicines are available in public health-care facilities. Midwives often lack the tools and supplies to help women before, during, and after pregnancy
The Global Acupuncture Project teaches midwives how to use a simple form of acupuncture to address women's health needs, supplementing and augmenting conventional medical interventions. Often the treatments resolve problems that have gone untreated or unsuccessfully treated. Treatments thus improve outcomes for women and their babies.
The Global Acupuncture Project believes that the most effective way to increase access to acupuncture and thereby increase healthy outcomes to the greatest number of women is to teach and empower the local midwives. With these skills, the midwives will be able to integrate acupuncture into their practices well into the future.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
