By hope okeny | Project Leader
A mother learns about protecting women and newborns from tetanus
Juliet Apio 48, knows all too well the choices for women delivering a baby; she’s made them all. At her home in Laliya village, surrounded by her husband and three children, she recounts personal decisions that reflect a progressive improvement in practices to keep women and newborns safe in childbirth and the critical first few weeks after birth.
Apio’s eldest son, 18-year-old Lajul, was born at home with no professional assistance. She used traditional methods for tying off and cutting the baby’s umbilical cord with string and unsterilized household scissors. It was during the insurgence, and during these times there was hardly any medical services available; the end of the cord was also sometimes packed with ash or coal, significantly increasing the risk of developing tetanus, an infection which can kill newborns within the first few weeks of life with symptoms including the infant’s refusal to feed, muscle rigidity and spasms.
The second son, Daudi, was also delivered from home, however, this time she was assisted by a midwife who used a mama birth kit (a small pouch containing sterile, disposable equipment), which Apio was received from the team who visited her village during an outreach program.
Six years later, Apio delivered her third child. She was happy that the Karin Medical Centre had opened near her village in Agonga. The government trained village health volunteer provided her with information about the health centre and the services the health centre provides. She later came to learn that her best option is to deliver from the health centre, where clean umbilical cord care was practiced under the supervision of trained skilled health workers. At the health centre, Apio received the first in a series of five doses of tetanus toxoid vaccination to protect her and her baby from the devastating effects of tetanus.
Karin Medical Centres with the support from the local District Health Office has been working to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus in the community by vaccinating women of child bearing age with tetanus toxoid (TT); providing improved antenatal care; and encouraging mothers to deliver their babies at health facilities with skilled birth attendants where sterilized equipment are used and clean cord delivery practices are followed. We continuously train our staff and provide outreach services in high risk communities
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