100 babies
My team and I walked to 15 villages over a four week period, to meet with the women under the shade trees. Some days we waded through swamps and other days we climbed mountains. Our goal was research. We wanted to find out what the women in rural Adaklu needed most. After all the results of our survey were tallied up, we came down to three main needs: a safer way to have babies, a way to make personal income and something to give them joy.
Every village has “grannies” that attend births in the houses. I set out to learn from these ladies and they taught me some of their “tricks of the trade” but I found that many of their practices were counter-productive to safe, easy birth. A little education has gone a long way in lowering the mortality rates and increasing the women’s recovery and well-being after birth.
We have built a clinic in one of the villages where 100 births have taken place, so far. I plan to train more birth attendants and hope to develop a program where the nurses come out to the villages monthly to do risk assessment.
