The maternal mortality rate in Gambia as estimated by the WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and the world bank from 1990 to 2013 was 430 per 100, 000 with a neonatal death of 2168 per 100,000. This project will provide state of the art maternity tools and supplies, it will also mobilize local networks of midwives to improve household and community practices. Studies have shown that improving knowledge and capacity of skilled birth attendants through training can lead to a 54% in mortality at birth.
About 99% of maternal and neonatal deaths occur in developing countries. Major direct causes of maternal mortality include postpartum hemorrhage, sepsis, obstructed labor and pre-eclampsia or eclampsia. In 2010, only 40% of births in rural areas were in health facilities. Weakened health systems, skills and limited access to prenatal, perinatal and post-partum services that are essential to improving maternal and child health and reducing mortality due to pregnancy continue to be a challenge.
The project will provide state or the art maternity diagnostic tools and therapeutic equipment and supplies for 2 regional hospitals and 5 rural clinics. The project will also provide training and large scale educational campaigns to enhance skills of birth attendants, midwives and newly trained health workers and providers to effectively provide quality and culturally appropriate prenatal care, and timely emergency perinatal care. The training will cover aspects of whole health.
The project will improve standard of practice among birth attendants and health facilities and improve procedures and systems to support maternal infant health. It will increase capacity to provide gender sensitive maternal and new born services. Improve referral systems using mobile technology, to be able to better manage complicated pregnancies. We hope to train about a 500 midwives and birth attendants thereby improving the quality of care received during prenatal, perinatal and postpartum.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
