By Molly Ronan | Development Associate
Dear Friends,
We are thrilled to share the exciting news about the launch of the Embrace program at Rabia Balkhi Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. Your generosity and support helped make this possible, thank you!
Our program partners identified a Site Manager, Meela, who helped with implementation and will continue to oversee the success of the program. At Rabia Balkhi Hospital, the Embrace infant warmer is used in the NICU and for transport from the Labor & Delivery ward and the Operating Theatre. Meela has trained doctors, nurses and midwives at the hospital to recognize and treat infant hypothermia, which has resulted in hundreds of babies receiving vital care for hypothermia in the first few months of the program.
Among those impacted were a set of premature and low birth weight triplets suffering from hypothermia. Their mother, Shamim, and her husband live in a village about an hour outside of Kabul with their eleven other children. The family anxiously awaited the arrival of the three newest members of the family, however when Shamim went into labor she became became very weak and anemic. Fortunately, Shamim able to deliver the babies via C-section at Rabia Balkhi Hospital. All three babies were born premature with low birth weight and were immediately placed in the new Embrace infant warmers. Shamim and her triplets stayed at the hospital for 5 days while the infants stabilized and started to gain weight. Shamim was very grateful that her infants had access to Embrace. She found the infant warmers especially helpful while breastfeeding and performing Kangaroo Care, since she could only manage one baby at a time.
Embrace’s Afghanistan program partners have been working directly with the Ministry of Health to identify three additional expansion sites before the start of the biting Afghan winter. We need your help more than ever. Help us spread the warmth!
Links:
By Ana Manzur Allan | Director of Partnerships and Communications
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