BMS World Mission workers Fiona and Les Allan work in Bangladesh at the Christian Hospital Chandraghona. Fiona works in nutrition and health promotion and Les is providing administrative support to the hospital's director. Here they tell us about the important developments in antenatal care for the poor with whom they are working:
In a country famous for its large population and high birth rate, it is ironic that so many women have little or no access to antenatal services. The ultrasound scans and check-ups that we take for granted in the UK are a luxury that many families cannot afford. Ongoing support from midwives and health visitors is non-existent. It is no surprise therefore, that Bangladesh has high death and sickness rates for both mothers and young children.
Practical love
Against this backdrop, Christian Hospital Chandraghona is demonstrating Jesus' love in a practical way by improving antenatal services to the poorest in society through its community health programme (CHP). In local villages, CHP health workers identify pregnant women and encourage them to attend our clinics for antenatal check-ups. They also educate women about the importance of eating well and encourage them to be immunised against tetanus. After the birth, they advise on good weaning practices and childhood immunisation programmes.
At our community clinics, midwives provide antenatal care which includes:
- maternal weight
- blood pressure and anaemia monitoring
- foetal growth and heartbeat measurements
- calculation of estimated delivery date
- lifestyle advice
- tetanus immunisation
- All of which costs the patient only five taka (five pence).
Light-weight
To show how much these services are needed, we recently attended a mobile clinic close to the hospital. An 18 year-old woman was attending her first antenatal check-up after finally persuading her mother-in-law to let her come to the clinic. She was eight months pregnant, had not completed the course of tetanus immunisations and weighed only 36kg (5 stone 10lbs). Measurements of her "bump" showed that it was the size we would have expected at six months of pregnancy.
Equipping and empowering
As well as working directly with pregnant women, the CHP team is also equipping and empowering others involved in maternal care. In particular, we are developing relationships with traditional birth attendants (TBA) who deliver 85 per cent of the babies born in this part of Bangladesh. In the last three months, the CHP team has conducted workshops attended by 80 TBAs where they were questioned about their knowledge, attitudes and practices.
As most of them had never received formal training, one of our female doctors ran an education session on pregnancy and safe delivery practices. In the future, we hope to build on these workshops by offering practical sessions to improve birthing techniques and the referral of women having difficulty during labour.
Lasting changes
By working at these three different levels, the CHP hopes to bring about beneficial and lasting changes for local women and children. This is at the heart of the work we aim to achieve within the communities we serve and reflects the targets set by the Millennium Development Goals. We hope that you will join us in praying for this valuable work.
Fiona and Les have an online journal which is available by clicking
here.
If you would like to support the work of Fiona and Les, or others like them, click
here.