In Uganda many newborn deaths are preventable with appropriate knowledge and practices at the family and community levels, and with appropriate care-seeking when danger signs are recognised. However, life-saving practices are not always followed due to poverty, cultural beliefs, lack of household food security and poor access to health care.
Birth, the first 24 hours and the first six days of life are the most critical for newborn survival. At least 45,000 newborn deaths occur each year and an equal number are stillborn. Uganda’s neonatal mortality rate (NMR), possibly an under-estimate, is very high at 29 deaths per 1,000 live births, has not declined over a period of 15 years. More newborn deaths occur at home, among the rural poor, internally displaced persons (IDP) camps and
in western and central regions. The common causes of neonatal deaths in Uganda are similar to the rest of Africa and include birth asphyxia, infections and complications of preterm birth. Underlying causes of death are related
to poor access and utilisation of health services during pregnancy and childbirth, especially the high number of deliveries that take place without skilled attendance. National health targets have not adequately captured
newborn health indicators, resulting in the exclusion of newborn survival from national development efforts.
Practices at community and household levels do not meet expected
standards due to poverty, lack of household food security and poor
access to health care. Prevention and treatment of diseases and ill
health is inadequate for malaria, HIV/AIDS and tetanus. Traditional
care-seeking practices during pregnancy are not always supportive of
formal care.
The benefits of birth preparedness are widely appreciated but many poor households do not seek care for cultural or financial reasons. This is compounded by lack of male and/or spousal support for women. There are a number of dangerous practices that take place during childbirth, many of which are linked to unskilled care and poor hygienic practices at home and at Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) facilities. Postnatal practices related to early breastfeeding and maintaining body temperature are fair but the common use of prelacteal feeds,early bathing and poor infection control place newborns at risk. Few women receive counseling before or after birth to encourage healthy behaviours for newborn care. The care of preterm infants and actions taken when a newborn fails to cry at birth are inadequate or non-existent. Although mothers recognise danger signs in the newborn and themselves, their response is inappropriate, often due to poor access to quality health care.
World Action Fund with 5 board members was founded in 2014 as an indigenous NGO. This organization started connecting with good friends like you and managed directly to support over 5,000 vulnerable persons mostly mothers and children including people with disabilities and refugees, My personal experiences and charity heart for over 18 years to date has created passion in me and you too can make great impact to make these moms and babies to exist in the current and next generation.More news report
What touched mus more is, our children and mothers are dying daily in their homes and moreso when they are admitted at the referral hospital and other health centres the same mortalities still continue, most of these come from rural areas, and this happens nearly in most communities in Uganda, government system has big health challenges and insufficient funding and human resource personnel that's affecting children and mother more, we have been getting young children with multiple disabilities, and their mothers explain, their status from birth and other get disabilities after birth, and those who can't make it die, their mother's smile is so short leaved (i.e death), the same to the babies, who lost their mothers during labor and become orphans. Join me in this noble cause and share this link, if you cant support directly.Your Voice to rescue moms and babies is a paramount fight. The repeated apologies about their death can't rescue the moms and their babies from mortality. Best of it all we need all our mothers and babies to exist and enjoy life like we all do.
The Arua regional referral hospital has been overwhelmed with several cases
of deaths within 9 months that's January-September 2020 where over 200
babies and 17 mothers reportedly died and these figures keep rising day by day, check news report here
Our Project
Our project " Save Mothers and Babies from Death in West Nile" region of Uganda, was born out of painful tears, these people have been facing over decades, losing their own person during and after labor. It's lack of awareness and lack proper attention given to the mothers when they are pregnant. We have started this campaign to seek your support.
UNICEF Released Statistics recently for the region that has one of the highest under five mortalities
in the country with 125 deaths per 1,000 live births as compared to the
national average 66.
The high population in the region with South Sudanese refugees have
overstretched the limited resources on the local health sectors. So this gives clear impression when 200 babies and 17 mothers dies at the referral hospital within 9 months (22 babies and almost 2 mothers dying monthly in the region). This project has been created to create impact through awareness, Village Health Team Capacity, Dialogue with health departments, resolving transport issues on emergencies, supporting some high risk mothers and their babies.
We want to raise £54,600 to support the mothers and their babies in ensuring safe health, through capacity building, providing materials, create awareness, Empower Village Heath Teams, Training Mothers on home hygiene and nutritional foods, providing emergence transport assistance, where transport is not available, Dialogue with District Health Team to ensure monitoring and effective services, Providing facilitation to 5 midwives or health workers on duties in order to increase morale and efficiency and lastly support in logistics and administrative costs in the field.
Our Goal
To contribute to the reduction of maternal, new-born, and child
morbidity and mortality, and improvements in child growth and
development in the West Nile sub-region through strengthening health
sector capacity to scale up and sustain the provision of high impact
maternal, neonatal, child health interventions, with a focus on
integrated and innovative approaches to reach the unreached. We want to support directly 3000 mothers and 10000 babies, and indirectly 50,000 mother and babies.
If we reach £54,600, at least 3000 house holds with pregnant mothers or babies will be covered, with at least £18.2 support in every house to mothers and their babies.
How to help
We are in a harmonious and changing World and we all subscribed to leave. To reach our mandated and targeted goals of directly helping 3000 mothers and babies, we need your kindness in financial help in the
form of donations on this platform and spreading the information to the world.
Every donation got, you will then
receive an extra reward to say thank you. We will also send you a shout out on our social media pages to again appreciate you more for the contribution and give your feedback directly to share
how you can continue to partner with us in the future where we shall discuss and chat way forward on schedules for get your rewards.
Inspiration
All have been encouraged by our vision and to start full swing!
Donate on the page and kindly please do post on your social medias and tell your family and friends about our vision and dream, to rescue more mothers and their babies from dying.
Thanks so much for reading
Peter Odama
Executive Director/Co-founder
The Background
A remarkable progress has been made in Uganda over the past decades in reducing maternal, new-born and under five mortality levels. This progress, however, marks significant variations in health outcomes and access to essential health across regions. The West Nile sub-region of Northern Uganda.
The region continues to have some of the poorest maternal, newborn and child health indicators including low rates of immunization, limited number of nurses to attend to mother during labour time, high rates of unattended births, limited number of beds and nets, high rates of malaria, diarrhea and HIV/AIDS – all resulting in high mortality and morbidity rates.
The project will also provide to the high risk mothers anti-shock garments and to the premature babies kangaroo care bags.
Inset is happy Mom with her baby...she lost the first baby
In 2015, government's News Paper reported a nurse evicting over 30 expectant mothers from Arua referral hospital, just because the expectant mothers asked why she arrived late and not giving them pain killers.
In the context of West Nile region, the 3 delays in the health system plays a major role in preventing timely access of mothers, newborns and children to health care. These delays are as follows:
First Delay: This refers to the delay in making the decision to seek medical attention. The first delay usually occurs at home and may be strongly influenced by social and cultural factors. In West Nile, most of the deliveries still take place at home. Lack of awareness on availability and value of health services is generally low, leading to very low utilization of services. In addition, socio-cultural and traditional practices hinder women from making decisions. The current influx of refugees has posed additional challenge as these communities do not know the local context, are not aware of the availability and location of the health services and often settled in previously unoccupied areas with no nearby health facilities. All these challenges lead to increase in disease burden, more home deliveries and thus increase in mortality and morbidity among the refugee communities.
Second Delay: This refers to a delay that occurs after the decision to seek care is made and before reaching the health facility. This could be related to lack of transportation, lack of funds to pay for transport, poor
road infrastructure, poor communications, etc. In West Nile, inadequate number of functional health facilities
and referral services as well as poor infrastructure for transport and communication are the key factors causing delays to accessing services. The road network in the region is poor, with some areas having no roads at all.
Third Delay: This refers to the delay in receiving appropriate care, once the health facility is reached. The health workers in the region have for long had their skills and competencies updated and refreshed. Thus long staying health workers with limited skills pose a huge challenge to the already fragile health system. Stock outs of basic medicines also occur in many of the health facilities in the northern regions and essential equipment necessary for the provision of maternal and child health services such as delivery beds, delivery kits, resuscitation equipment, and sterilizers are still lacking.
