Physical Health Uganda Project #33098

Support our newborn care training team

by Born on the Edge

Project Report | Oct 9, 2022
Born tired

By Adam Hewitt Smith | Trustee, Born on the edge

The last three months have been busy for our training team who not only work full time on our neonatal unit in Mbale Regional Referral hospital but who also find time to ensure as many people across the region have the skills they need to save newborn lives.

Being “born tired” or asphyxiated is the leading cause of our newborn deaths across Uganda. Although there are many factors that contribute to this devastating outcome, as the neonatal team we can make sure that for EVERY baby born tired, there is a trained healthcare worker adequately armed with skills, knowledge and equipment and so in mid-september, we held our inaugural monthly Neonatal Resuscitation Training that will offer refresher training to all those working with newborn babies across the region.

We would love it if you could help us train as many people as possible across the region. Little by Little, we can make a difference to these vulnerable newborns.

At the beginning of August it was World Breastfeeding Week. All mamas need support to optimally breastfeed their babies, for our smallest and sickest babies this can look a little bit different - their mamas need support to express the own breastmilk to feed their babies in an appropriate and safe way. Mama’s use feeding tubes, cups and spoons to feed their babies with their own breastmilk.

The theme for this year’s #WorldBreastfeedingWeek was “Step Up for Breastfeeding: Educate and Support.” We are focusing on increasing the education and support of our mamas and our health workers. We are teaching about methods of expression and the benefits of breastmilk for the sick and small babies, and we are supporting mamas to express successfully.

We want to make this special WBW celebration part of our everyday care, so that EVERY mother and EVERY sick and small baby has the best chance at building their breastfeeding journey.

We are in the process of setting up a lactation support service in the neonatal unit to support over 3000 mothers and babies in the neonatal unit every year to express their breastmilk and succeed in their breastfeeding journey.

We need just £3000 to make this dream a reality! Can you help make this celebration an everyday activity?

Back to all project reports

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.