By Adam Hewitt Smith | Trustee, Born on the Edge
We wanted to share some of our stories with you in our quarterly reports. Stories provide a real measure of the impact that your donations make to the lives of our tiny babies and their families in eastern Uganda.
Babies who are born too soon (preterm) or who are very sick are often unable to feed for themselves. Without an alternative way of feeding them they would get thinner and thinner and could not survive. For the smallest and sickest, a feeding tube passing through the nose into the stomach is the safest option. Just four years ago feeding tubes were not accepted by the majority of our mothers in eastern Uganda. The tubes were often refused by the mothers and sometimes even removed by them. Now the positive attitude of the staff and the good experience from fellow mothers means that mothers are asking us for feeding tubes!
The key to this change in attitude has been the training of our staff. The clinical trainers who you support through our fundraising campaign teach them how to correctly place feeding tubes, how to check them, how to use them safely and how to counsel the mothers as to their importance in the care of their babies.
“Thank you so much for teaching me how to make a baby breath, before today I have not been doing it right since school. Now I can truly save lives!”
This quote came from one of the nursing staff attending our fun and rewarding afternoon of practical training in neonatal resuscitation, kangaroo care, feeding tubes and expressing breast milk. This is the fifth module of our 14 module Newborn Care Training Course. We now run the course every year at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital and it is open to any nurses, midwives or clinicians who work in obstetrics, paediatrics and neonatalogy.
We are reliant on you to support our trainers who in turn provide life saving treatment to sick babies in eastern Uganda and life saving training to their colleagues and friends around them. Please consider giving a christmas gift to our fundraising campaign and help us make an even greater impact in 2019.
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