A Breakdown of Birth: FIMRC's Maternity Ward

You've been hearing a lot about all the babies that are born in the maternity ward of the FIMRC Clinic at Project Bududa, but let's take a step back. Why did we need a maternity ward? What has its impact been since its opening in 2016? Below you'll be able to understand why we took this step for this particular project site.

FIMRC takes very intentional steps towards improving health in different communities, and Project Bududa, Uganda is no different. As you read in earlier blogs, we moved our clinic to allow better access for more communities surrounding us. In the communities surrounding us, home births are largely the norm because of a variety of reasons including difficulty to access clinics and hospitals, cost, and the lack of understanding of the dangers of home births. While they have improved compared to their regional baseline, their maternal mortality rate is still approximately 360 per 100,000 live births, and the under-five mortality rate is 77 per 1000 live births (WHO Uganda Statistical Profile). Giving birth at home without proper sanitation, medical attention, and resources to help if something goes wrong greatly impacts these mortality rates. This was a health issue that FIMRC wanted to address directly, and so creating a space where mothers could come to give birth in a safe and comfortable environment was important to consider when building the clinic. 

FIMRC's objectives include the following:

• Increasing the number of births within the FIMRC Clinic to 300
• Reaching 1,500 pre-natal, antenatal, and post-natal visits in 2017
  • Pre-natal: 1st & 2nd trimester
  • Ante-natal: 3rd trimester
  • Post-natal: After birth
• Increase the follow up of Community Health Educators (CHEs) with our Maternal & Child Health (MCH) patients

We have seen some incredible successes within our MCH Program, including currently being at 58.8% of our goal in pre-natal, ante-natal, and post-natal visits. This means that so far there have been 882 visits completed! We've also seen an increase in trust of our Midwives, Irene, Sarah and Betty, which has resulted in an increase in ante-natal visits by our CHEs. Building trust around your child's health is an extremely difficult task, and we're excited to see how this growth affects the success of the clinic! We have had 66 births so far in the clinic's maternity ward, which is a steady increase from 2016. The best part about it all is helping to facilitate the entry of beautiful babies into the world!

WHO Uganda Statistical Profile: http://www.who.int/gho/countries/uga.pdf?ua=1