Antenatal Care for Expecting Moms
February 7th, 2020
One of our dreams at Cherish is to open Phase 2 of the Health Center - which will be a maternity ward for labor and delivery. Unfortunately, we’re just not there yet...but there is a huge need in the community for antenatal education for moms. As we pray and plan for phase 2’s maternity ward, we’ve realized there are things we can start doing now that will make it an easier transition for when that day comes.
On February 7th, the health center team hosted a meeting for pregnant mothers and women leaders from the village. We helped educate these women on health, health in the context of if they are HIV-positive, and options for their upcoming deliveries (since we don’t yet have the labor and delivery facility, we have partner hospitals we can arrange transport with for when they go into labor).
There were 37 mothers in attendance. Joan (Cherish counselor) taught about a virtues woman in Proverbs 31, Nurse Stella explained why it’s important to know your HIV status when you’re pregnant, and Dr. Gavin explained the importance of doing antenatal care and starting it early (most mothers in the community typically start antenatal care at 6 months). Meals were served for the women and we felt that the meeting was a success.
We also let them know about our plans for the way forward.
1. We will be conducting antenatal classes once a month.
2. We started partnerships with Kisubi Hospital, Entebbe referral hospital and Nsamizi Hospital. We will do antenatal care at Cherish, but at the end, we write a referral letter to a mother’s hospital of their choice. These hospitals will provide an ambulance to come pick the mother in labor from Cherish.
3. We also have an antenatal package. You pay 80,000 UGS (roughly $22) which includes all your initial lab tests, mama kit, medicine that’s given during the visits, mosquito net, and consultation fees for all 8 visits, etc.
A team from Entebbe referral hospital joined us and gave these mothers the assurance that they will be cared for when they go there to deliver.
We will be conducting antenatal classes once a month. We can’t wait to see how this improves the lives of babies and moms in the local villages!
Are you a medical professional that would be interested in traveling to Uganda to help us put on medical outreaches? We need your help during summer 2020!
We’re looking for doctors, nurses, and/or dentists to serve alongside our health center team during the week of July 27-31. If you’re interested in joining on this once in a lifetime trip to help provide quality healthcare to underserved people in the communities surrounding Cherish Uganda, please reach out to Kathleen Spillman at kathleen@cherishuganda.org