By Clare BruceWednesday 6 May 2015Station NewsReading Time: 2 minutes
Imagine you live in a Ugandan village, and your baby is about to be born on a dirty floor, in the shelter of your very basic home – without medical assistance.
Healthy and happy: You can help Ugandan mums and bubs by packing birthing kits for World Vision.
How do you feel in this moment?
For almost half of all Ugandan women who give birth, this scenario is a reality. Infection is a common occurrence as a result of poor conditions, and one woman in 49 dies in childbirth – compared to just 1 in 8,100 in Australia.
Ironically 80 percent of these maternal deaths could be prevented with simple access to basic maternal healthcare.
That’s why World Vision wants to put together 10,000 birthing kids for women in Uganda, to help improve the low rates of mother-and-child survival during labour.
But they need your help – in a very practical way.
They’re looking for women who are willing to pack the birthing kits and get them ready to send to Uganda.
Women are being encouraged to join Vision Sisters – an initiative launched by World Vision and the Birthing Kit Foundation (Australia) in which they can help raise funds and also help pack the birthing kits with their own hands.
A clean birthing kit costs less than a cup of coffee and contains the following six basic items to ensure a clean delivery:
• a plastic sheet for mum to lie on
• gauze to wipe the baby’s eyes and mum’s perineum
• cord for clean tying of the umbilical cord
• gloves to keep hands clean and prevent infection
• a sterile scalpel blade to cleanly cut the umbilical cord
• soap for clean hands and preventing infection
To get involved with Vision Sisters register at www.worldvision.com.au/visionsisters
You can fundraise within your church or community to help provide clean birthing kits and train health workers in Uganda.
If you raise enough money for at least 200 kits you can then host a birthing kits assembly event to pack them – a fun and inspiring activity for women of all ages in your church. World Vision will provide all the resources needed.
The initiative is part of the work World Vision is doing in partnership with communities and governments worldwide, to decrease the death rate in child birth and improve healthcare for both bubs and mums.