Continuing to Work from Pakistan

By: Faisal Siraj, Young Champion of Maternal Health

This blog post was contributed by Faisal Siraj, one of the fifteen Young Champions of Maternal Health chosen by Ashoka and the Maternal Health Task Force at EngenderHealth. He will be blogging about her experience every month, and you can learn more about him, the other Young Champions, and the program here.

The 3rd month of my project has been very busy. I am near to completing the training guidelines for traditional birth attendants, health workers and health activists that my mentor, Ashoka Fellow Lucy Attah Auwalu, has encouraged me to write. The guidelines I am working on are based on safe motherhood practices. There are two sections of the guidelines: the first section is on maternal care and the second section deals with child care during pregnancy and after birth. I have completed three more chapters of section one during this month. These chapters are as follows.

Chapter four: Antepartum Hemorrhage
Aims & Objectives

  1. To understand why an antepartum hemorrhage should always be regarded as serious.
  2. To provide the initial management of a patient presenting with an antepartum hemorrhage.
  3. To understand that it is sometimes necessary to deliver the fetus as soon as possible, in order to save the life of the mother or infant.
  4. To diagnose the cause of the bleeding from the history and examination of the patient.
  5. To correctly manage each of the causes of antepartum hemorrhage.
  6. To diagnose the cause of a blood stained vaginal discharge and administer appropriate treatment.

Chapter Five: Preterm Labour & Preterm Rupture of Membrane
Aims & Objectives

  1. To define preterm labour and preterm rupture of the membranes.
  2. To understand why these conditions are very important.
  3. To understand the role of infection in causing preterm labour and preterm rupture of the membranes.
  4. To list which patients are at increased risk of these conditions.
  5. To understand what preventive measures should be taken.
  6. To diagnose preterm labour and preterm rupture of the membranes.
  7. To manage these conditions.

Chapter Six: First Stage of Labour: The Condition of Mother
Aims & Objectives

  1. To monitor the condition of the mother during the first stage of labour.
  2. To record the clinical observations on the partogram.
  3. To explain the clinical significance of the observations.
  4. To manage any abnormalities which are detected.

There are about four other chapters to complete in this section. Soon after completion of safe motherhood guidelines for mothers I will be starting work on safe child care practices guidelines for traditional birth attendants, health workers and health activists.

During this month we also started our first training session for health workers and community health activists. The first training session was on Antenatal Care. At the start of the sessions I had a conference call discussion with the project coordinator (Eunan), health workers and community health activists. I was really surprised to hear their enthusiasm and commitment toward the project. At the same time I felt very bad because I wanted to be with them during all these activities. I hope I will join them soon (when my physical health permits)!