Giving birth in a remote village with limited health care can be risky. We support improved maternal and child health by distributing free birthing kits to Maasai women.
FWP has partnered with the Birthing Kits Foundation Australia to distribute kits to vulnerable women to help enable a clean and safer birthing environment at home or in the village hospital or clinic. Each year, we distribute over 300 birthing kits to Kitenden (West Kilimanjaro), Kamwanga (North Kilimanjaro) and Irkaswa (Monduli District) health clinics, traditional Maasai midwives and directly to women.
We reach out to women through other projects, including the Kitenden Pre-school which is located next door to the local health clinic.
The kits are used for home births and at village health clinics, where women are often instructed to bring or purchase their own scalpel and gloves. Women attending the clinic for an antenatal visit were provided with a kit. Read how this important initiative is making a difference in the case studies below.
Stories from the village
Ngoije is a midwife in Kitenden who has utilised the kits. “The world changed a lot in our time, once when a midwife was called to help a woman deliver it was a happy time, but now with the diseases being such a big threat, we can often only have negative thoughts. When we were trained, we told we could get an infection from the blood. The birthing kits have made me feel so safe now, something not felt since we were first told about the diseases.”
Naareliyo gave birth at the dispensary in Lerang’wa, however she took the birthing kit from the clinic in Kitenden. “I had a lot of pain near to the due date and the doctor told me the baby was forcing its way prior to the due date. I had two weeks’ bedrest in the hospital before the birth due to the pain, but before I was admitted I went home to prepare and remembered to take the kit with me as the hospital asks for us to bring our own new gloves and scalpel to reduce costs.”