The Maternity Unit 2012
The Project for 2012 is A Maternity Unit to serve a group of 20 villages.
In Nepal, when a lady marries, she leaves her family home and lives with her husband's family. There are often other married siblings living there too, making a possible 3 generations in one small house. In many cases there will also be goats and chickens kept in the house in the winter months. Babies will be born in these conditions, on the floor, with only her mother-in-law to act as midwife, and not having had any professional advice before that time.
Can you imagine that happening to us or our daughters?
Maternal mortality is 50 times higher than in this country, and in 2011, stands at 281 per 100,000 live births. Most are deaths caused by haemorrhage or obstructed labour.
2.1% of births are still births, and 48 out of each 1000 will die in their first year. By the age of 5 years, 1 in every 10 chidren born will have died.
10 times more babies die than mothers.
One child, Subash, in 'My Village' was only hours old when his young mother died. His grandparents brought him up along with his brother, Divos, who was 2 years old. They are teenagers now.
There are 4 children in the village who are severely brain-damaged. This is one of the potential risks of a difficult delivery when professional help is unavailable.
One little girl was born blind in one eye. This may have been caused by the mother contracting measles when she was pregnant.
These are just from one village. There are 19 more villages that use our Health Post.
Our Health Post provides general medical help, but it is not specialised. It is going to be very costly, but when the money is in place we shall open a well-equipped maternity unit with a qualified midwife. This would be available to 8oo homes and cover antenatal, births, post natal and children up to 5 years of age.
WE NEED A MATERNITY UNIT
Will you help us please?
