POSTNATAL CARE PROGRAM: IT'S WORKING! - Midwives For Haiti

POSTNATAL CARE PROGRAM: IT’S WORKING!

We launched a new Postnatal Care Program! In collaboration with Haiti’s Ministry of Health and Population, Haiti’s Kids, our new Postnatal Care Program ensures that every mother who delivers at Hospital Ste. Therese and her baby are thoroughly evaluated before discharge, given excellent education and scheduled for follow-up visits in our new postnatal clinic. With this new program, we hope to increase the number of patients receiving postnatal care at Hospital Ste. Therese from 1% to 100%. Postnatal care can mean the difference between life and death for moms and babies.

We just finished our first full week of postnatal examinations & discharge teaching for moms & newborns at Hopital Ste Therese. Our two hired SBAs who work on this program are Illa Philogene and Juslène Regulus. Last Friday, Juslene saw EIGHT moms on her own!

Another VERY EXCITING thing happened that day….

Part of the discharge teaching is a list of “warning signs” to return to the hospital for.  Some mom’s can’t read, so Illa & Juslene review the points and have the moms say each one back to them.

This morning we had a mom come find us…knowing that we were the Post-Natal team. She had been discharged yesterday after a normal delivery (typically sent home after 6 hours) and came back today because her baby had a fever. (POINT #1 on the baby warning sign list!) We took a temp to confirm and it was 38C (100.4F) axillary. She was referred immediately to the pediatric emergency unit for further evaluation.

It worked!!!

She returned based on their care… you should have seen Juslene’s smile!

-An excerpt of this post came from our staff volunteer currently living in Hinche, Rebecca Barlow. For more stories and updates, you can check out her blog.