Our routine outreaches for the month of May started today in Jesuko community. We had to rush through in order to be able to attend to all the pregnant women.
May 5,2021
Jesuko Community
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This particular community is unique in the sense that the benefactors don’t really have good health seeking behavior. They rely solely on cultural practices and religion practices as means of antenatal care. This can be particularly challenging for our team who are more concerned with intensive antenatal care. We usually have to rush through to ensure each of them have their blood pressure and weight checked before administering the routine antenatal drugs else they will complain of waiting times.
We are embracing the uniqueness of these people and daily finding ways to serve and care for them so as to ensure optimum outcome for moms and babies.
We had 17 pregnant women in attendance and we were able to attend to all of them.
We also gave those with 20weeks and above gestational ages the mandatory ANTIMALARIAL medication and referred them to our Sogunro event venue for routine tetanus shot for tomorrow.
May 6, 2021
We usually record lower numbers in some communities when it rains especially because 99% of the communities where we work are riverine and water locked hence low turn out when it rains.
It was somehow tedious for our community health workers to access the communities where we work today but we forged ahead nonetheless.
Sogunro community
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We didn’t even meet anyone waiting at our event venue and even when they came it wasn’t crowded at first. We waited them out and then figured got better when the rain stopped.
We attended to 13 pregnant women, 13 pregnant women also had their mandatory tetanus shots 3 of these women were those referred from our Jesuko event yesterday. We gave each of these women basic routine antenatal care, drugs and mandatory ANTIMALARIAL medication. We immunized 43 babies in all.
Oko-agbon community
Attendance was really low in oko-agbon community but we did the bit we could notwithstanding.
We attended to 4 pregnant women with basic routine antenatal care, drugs, checked for fetal heart beat, position and gestational ages.
We immunized a 10 weeks old infant with the recommended vaccination.
We concluded our activities today and we received drug donations from Drug aid Africa towards our routine outreaches.
Items donated were basic routine antenatal drugs and first aid medications for infants and toddlers.
May 7, 2021
We held another routine antenatal, postnatal care and immunization outreach in Makoko today.
Makoko Community
Turn out was not really as much as we anticipated but we did our bit nonetheless. Our community health volunteers already went round the community to mobilize at least an hour before the arrival of our community health workers
We had only 4 pregnant women in attendance and we attended to them all with our basic routine antenatal care, routine antenatal drugs, mandatory ANTIMALARIAL medication and 4tetanus shots for gestational ages 20weeks and above.
We immunized 14 babies in all and ensured mothers with newborns of less than 4weeks old were given vitamin A vaccine as recommended by the primary healthcare board. We also gave a teenage mom of 2weeks old newborn routine postnatal drugs to help boost and blood level and make up for some nutrients she appeared to be lacking. Maternal nutrition is another cause for alarm in most of these communities but we do the bit we can with the resources available to us per time.
We immunized a set of twins who are less than days old. We attended to their mom during our routine visit to oko-agbon community yesterday and were informed when she delivered safely yesterday night. We gave the newborn twins at birth vaccines and their mom vitamin A vaccine.
We are able to do what we do because of your commitment to our cause in cash and kind thank you for keeping us in business.
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The reoccurring theme with maternal and child health and well-being and access especially as it relates to hard to reach communities is that women and girls still have to travel miles to access basic care in pregnancy and postpartum.
There are other cases where some will totally move from their home community to another community where they have relatives to access care and return back home few weeks postpartum.
Such is the case of one of the 12 pregnant women and teenage girls we attended to during our routine antenatal care outreach at Idi Araba/mosafejo communities yesterday the 15th of May.
This particular lady came from a rural community in Ogun State to access care the sad thing about this though is that the community she moved to is also a slum hard to reach setting hence our interventions.
Understanding this woman’s plight might help you understand how far we have to go in ending preventable maternal and child mortality and morbidity in Nigeria one community at a time.
May 15, 2021
Idi-Araba and Mosafejo Communities
Our registered nurse midwife gave a health talk on breastfeeding and she did so with practical examples and illustration which made the class quite interactive.
Our health talks are usually given in the local languages of our benefactors so we are sure they get the best out of our efforts. Yesterday was no exception. We gave each of these women and girls free basic routine antenatal care, antenatal drugs, checked for fetal heart beat, position and gestational ages. We checked for maternal blood pressure and also distributed diapers, cord clamps and baby wears.
We also gave the mandatory ANTIMALARIAL medication for those whose pregnancies are 20weeks gestational ages and above especially those who had not been given before.
This is our last routine outreach for the month of May 2021 and we want to say a big thank you to everyone who donated both cash, skills and resources we also thank Drug Aid Africa for their donated medications.
Thank you for your continuous support and donations we are able to consistently do what we do because of your tremendous support and commitment to our cause.
We are already preparing for our June outreaches and we are looking forward to your support and donations towards making the outreaches happen.
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