Our newest addition to Abundant Grace of God activities! As midwives we are blessed to be instrumental in preventing unnecessary deaths and trauma for babies during their deliveries. We even help give advice into their first 6 weeks of life. Unfortunately we have seen a number of the babies that delivered safe and sound at our clinic go on suffer from preventable illnesses after their last post-partum check-up.
In fact, we heard just a few weeks ago that a baby from one of our adopted villages that was delivered at our clinic in 2008, died from diarrhea and dehydration. I wish I could say that this is an isolated case, but in fact it is not. We have seen numerous babies that have delivered at our clinic go on to suffer from common childhood illnesses such as diarrhea, malnutrition, pneumonia, malaria and tuberculosis.
As clinic staff we have been grieved to see the pain and loss in the lives of our patients. Knowing our patients personally we know that it is not apathy or a lack of love for their children that leads to these untimely deaths, rather it is lack of knowledge.
Unicef stated, “As many as 40 per cent of child deaths could be prevented with improved family and community care – not high-tech health equipment, but access to solid knowledge, support and basic supplies.”
We as staff members of Abundant Grace of God have discussed how we could possibly help with this problem and came up with the idea to start with basic education for parents regarding keeping their children healthy.
February 5 was our very first Well-Baby Seminar. We had 18 women in attendance to listen to guest speaker Cathee Mapes share about recognizing common childhood illnesses. It was a huge success and we look forward to the next seminar on March 5.
gthemidwife 