The East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) in collaboration with the Regional Center for Quality of Health Care (RCQHC) with support from USAID/EA, and Laerdal Foundation and American Academy of Pediatrics, organized a Training of Trainers Workshop on Helping Babies Breathe HBB) held from 8 – 10 May 2012 at Mazsons Hotel in Zanzibar. The workshop was organized in order to train midwifery tutors and preceptors on how to prevent asphyxia at birth leading to reduced number of newborns deaths in Tanzania.
Statistics have shown that in 2009, 8.1 million children across the word died before their fifth birthday and of the 8.1 million child deaths the vast majority occurred in just two regions, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Africa has the highest rates of child mortality were 1 child out of 8 children dies before the age of 5 years. The newborn deaths constitute of 29% of under-fives mortality and the main causes for almost 90% of the newborn deaths are infections (32), prematurity and low birth weight (29) and birth asphyxia and birth trauma (27). Birth asphyxia contributes 9% and need to be dealt with in the first minute of life.
Furthermore, it has been shown that about 75% of neonatal deaths are in the first week of birth, and up to 50% of neonatal deaths are in the first 24 hours following birth and about a quarter is on the day of birth1. It has been proved that the majority of causes of newborn deaths are treatable and preventable. Effective interventions are available to address the causes but coverage of this is unacceptable low. This training is among the interventions recommended in order to address the problem of the newborn deaths due to asphyxia.
A total of 30 participants attended this workshop of which, 15 were from Zanzibar and the other 15 were from Tanzania mainland. Some of the participants were midwifery tutors at the schools they were coming from and others were preceptors for midwifery students at the hospitals used by midwifery students for clinical learning sessions. Also present were, Alphonce Kalula, Senior Programme Officer – ECSACON, Christine Omondi, Programme Officer – Child Health and Nutrition, RCQHC and Joyce Kamdoyo, Midwifery Training Coordinator – ECSA- HC.
Helping Babies Breath and Essential Neonatal Care
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