A healthy and safe pregnancy, plus surviving childbirth is a dream for many women in the developing world. CSI-partner, Paolo Patruno captures the pain and the loss of giving life in this incredible video Birth is a Dream - a documentary he dedicated to all the mothers in Africa. There are direct and indirect causes of maternal and newborn mortality; however, many of the direct causes such pre-eclampsia and postpartum hemorrhage are preventable and manageable with proven low-cost low-tech interventions.
For many pregnant women living on $1.25 or less a day, lack of basic medical supplies creates a strong barrier to deliver in a health facility in the presence of a skilled birth attendant. Lack of basic medical supplies equally creates a stressful working environment for nurses and midwives, which is often the case across health facilities in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Part of CSI's initiatives to help pregnant women, their unborn babies, and midwives is to provide sterile childbirth kits for free to the women.
Midwives are trained on the contents of the childbirth kits by a CSI certified midwife. The trained midwives and nurses are always grateful for the childbirth kit donations since they often work with limited to no medical supplies. Videos below captured messages from the head nurse and matron, in Tanzania and Uganda. In addition to the kits, CSI also offers midwifery professional development training to strengthen and improve health facility midwifery skills in maternal and newborn care.
