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Safe mother and Baby

Support provided by UNHCR's Safe Mother and Baby Program is often the difference between life and death. See how you can help!



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Stories From The Field

Charity, Uganda

Charity, Uganda

Siripi Health Centre, Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement near Arua, Uganda

April 18, 10.40am: Two women laboured in the centre this morning. At 6.15am, 20-year-old Charity Fikeira gave birth to her first child - a tiny but healthy baby girl. Yesterday, as her contractions increased, she walked nearly two and half kilometres from her hut to the health centre, accompanied by her mother, her sister and her sister's two young children. Charity has attended the clinic here several times during her pregnancy, receiving standard health checks, preventative malaria medication and a supplementary food ration for pregnant and nursing mothers. She has been encouraged to deliver at the centre where there is a basic but clean delivery table, sterilized equipment, experienced midwives and, at least some of the time, an ambulance on standby.

Charity is now resting in the small six-bed ward, her baby daughter beside her. However, things have not gone so smoothly for the other woman in labour. Two hours ago, she was rushed to Arua, the nearest town, showing symptoms of obstructed labour and acute foetal distress. She has had to endure a gruelling two hour journey on rough roads to deliver her baby by caesarean section at Arua District Hospital. "They called and she's okay," says the Supervising Nurse. "She is lucky that the ambulance was here and she didn't have to wait too long."

By early afternoon, Charity and her family are ready to go home. She has received her UNHCR Mother and Baby packages containing two sets of baby clothes, nappies, towels, sanitary items, talc and soap. The baby is wrapped tightly in a bright new swaddling cloth. "She doesn't have a name yet," Nurse Luace explains. "Here it is the father who names the babies. That will happen when they go home."

Maternal Health

UNHCR oversees the operation of maternity clinics in refugee camps and encourages women to access these services before, during and after childbirth. Through our Safe Mother and Baby Program, we train and equip midwives and provide all pregnant and breastfeeding mothers with extra nutrition and anti-malarial medication.

Where home birth is the norm and sanitation is poor, we distribute our Clean Delivery Kit - a plastic bag containing a clean blade, a plastic sheet, soap, string for the baby's cord, a swaddling cloth and information using simple pictures. These simple kits have dramatically reduced birth-related deaths and infections in a number of impoverished refugee communities.