Support our newborn care training team

I had my first born at 18 years old and carried my first pregnancy up to term. However since my first pregnancy, all the rest of my pregnancies have all ended early. Several investigations were done and nothing was found to be the definitive cause. Me and my husband we have been worried for all that time. However for this 8th pregnancy the story has been little different, I started falling sick at 5 months of pregnancy. I went to hospital for treatment and kept going back for review. The doctors told me I had urine infection which kept returning. When I made 6months, the infection recurred and I got malaria at the same time. I felt so bad and very weak during that time. Suddenly, one morning I realised water was flowing down my legs, though there was no blood and I felt no pain. I was quickly rushed to the main hospital and put on bed rest. I was already so worried of losing my baby again. On the second day of admission the labour pains started and worsened within hours. At around midday my baby came out and she didn't cry immediately however she was rushed to neonatal unit.

The day my baby girl was admitted, she was unstable with difficult breathing and kept stopping to breath. She only weighed 850g. The doctors told me my baby required a breathing machine (CPAP) to help her breath since she was so very tiny, but no machine was available. They were all occupied by other sick babies. The doctors and nurses encouraged me to keep the baby warm by kangaroo mother care and she was kept on oxygen.

The following day a CPAP machine was given to my little angel and the doctor encouraged me and promised me that she would do whatever she could to see my small baby survive. The team of doctors and nurses worked and encouraged me as I also followed the instructions they gave me. I practiced continuous kangaroo care, expressed milk to feed her ever 2 hours and kept everything as clean as I could. I did that all routinely for the whole three months we were admitted in the unit.

Am very happy that my baby managed to pull through from the time of birth, when she was only 850g, to the 1350g she weighs today.

As we are discharged to continue her care from home, me and my husband are very grateful to the entire Neonatal team for their hard work. I pray that the Almighty enables her to live since she managed to survive from being born too early. I also encourage other mothers who have prematures to always have have faith that their small babies can survive when given good care with the help of doctors.

Thank you Neonatal Team.”

—————————————————————

Our Neonatal Clinical Officers are one of the key factors to the success of our programme in eastern Uganda. Not only do they provide hands-on, expert and loving care to all our babies and their families every single day of the year, but they spend much of their days teaching and training. They give bedside teaching for the neonatal team of today and tomorrow; nurses, doctors, nursing students and medical students. And they deliver our 14 module Newborn Care Training Course to healthcare workers at health facilities across the region.

Why not support our work, by supporting one of our clinical staff to deliver this life saving care and training?