Expand Maternal Healthcare in Northern Haiti

Dear valuable supporters, 

Our C2C team were hoping to start 2022 without news headlines about COVID-19, but alas this is not the case, with Omicron impacting whole world. When it comes to our Maternal Health Program, many of the women enrolled in the program missed scheduled antenatal appointments due to them getting the flu or COVID-19. Since testing for COVID-19 in Haiti, especially in the rural areas we serve, is hard to come by, we have a hard time diagnosing the women in our program. For the ones that missed their appointments, the registration nurse and midwife call them up and check on their health status to see how their pregnancy is progressing considering their sickness.

In happier news, we are excited to report that in 2021 we had a total of 2,749 antenatal care visits: over 932 first visits, 648 second visits, 500 third visits, 383 fourth visits, and 286 5th+ visits. We’ve also given 1,114 Diphtheria vaccine shots as part of the program. In addition, our OB-GYN conducted 1,392 ultrasounds for the year. We are deeply grateful for the continued support of our amazing GlobalGiving community -- YOU made this all possible. 

This year, our main focus will be improving the program. We modified some of our procedures to be able to answer the high demand for enrollment. Previoulsly, our OB-GYN and midwife would both consult women coming for their initial visit. Since the first visit takes the longest with all the laboratory tests, ultrasound tests, and recording of medical history, we thought it would be best for the OB-GYN to handle all new patients and the midwife only consult patients coming for the second, third, and fourth visits; therefore, leaving the first and last visit to the OB-GYN and all at-risk pregnancies.

Furthermore, we are proud to report that our postnatal visits have been successful so far. In two recent vistits, we realized that even though the two mothers we visited had given birth at the hospital, they had not yet given their newborns the BCG vaccine, which is an important vaccine to protect against tuberculosis. After educating them on the importance of coming to our clinics with their babies to get the vaccine, they followed our recommendations and visited the following week. During the postnatal visit, we checked on the baby’s umbilical cord stump to ensure it was properly healing, and encouraged the mothers to breastfeed and not give food to their babies in the first 4-6 months.

The combination of our antenatal and postnatal visits have improved the knowledge of the women we serve in our communities. All this could not be achieved without the generous donations from the GlobalGiving community. Thank you and we look forward to sharing more about this program with you this year!