Donate now to help us support women to give birth safely
26 November 2010
We need your support in our effort to improve
maternal health and other priority development areas through
skilled volunteering.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), every day,
about 1000 women die due to childbirth complications. Pregnant
women are still dying from easily preventable complications such as
severe bleeding after childbirth and infection.
Please help us support women to give birth safely by
donating to AVI. You'll be supporting skilled volunteers
who work alongside local people in their communities, creating
sustainable change.
AVI volunteer midwife, Adrienne White, has kindly shared her
experience of what it's like working in an effort to improve
maternal health. Adrienne is currently working in the dusty
outposts along the Thai Burma border.
23 October 2010. Mae Sot, Thailand.
I
have been a midwife teacher working with maternity clinics near Mae
Sot on the Thai-Burma border for 14 months. It is everything I
thought it would be - and at the same time, nothing like I
expected.
I am running a train-the-trainer program for five very experienced
midwife clinicians. They will teach with me for the next eight
months so they can continue training local midwives when my AVI
assignment is over.
Class is on the upstairs balcony of a bamboo building and we sit on
the floor on bamboo mats. Suddenly one of the midwives is called to
help in the labour room. A very young woman has arrived with
serious complications; very high blood pressure at 34 weeks of
pregnancy and a breech (bottom first) baby. The woman is too far
advanced in labour to be transferred to a hospital that can do
caesarean birth. The midwives are on the phone to the doctor who
guides them through the breech birth. The baby is born in good
condition. Midwives at the clinic have extraordinary skills
compared to many in the developed world, as they must deal with
emergencies even when the doctor is not present.
The midwife comes back to class and I am the only one who thinks
it's unusual to go back to learning after such dramatic
events.
In Adrienne's story the mother and infant were lucky. All too often
this story could have ended with two preventable deaths.
Donating to AVI is your way of supporting volunteers like
Adrienne; it's also your opportunity to share a community's
vision.
Thank you so much for standing by AVI, it
really makes a huge difference.
Please
give generously today and support the amazing work of
future AVI volunteers.
All donations over $2 are tax deductible
Together we can support communities overseas to help themselves -
please donate
today.