Maternal and Newborn Care Training

Photos:
*Juana Molina, Elder/ Dr. Jeff Zollinger and Dr. Tania Paredes. Tania is our local Champion for Maternal and Newborn Care training.

This was our second time around with the Helping Babies Breathe program. It was the first major humanitarian initiative that we worked on after our arrival in Peru in 2015 and will be the last major initiative we work on before returning home. This year we coordinated the program in Ayacucho and Piura, two areas of Peru where we had not traveled previously for any projects. Ayacucho was very quiet, cool, and relaxed in the Andes mountains and sits at about 9,000 feet. Piura was busy, warmer and a much larger city. It is in northern Peru along the coast bordering Ecuador.

One of our goals with partners is to identify within the partner organization a person that we would classify as a "champion," someone deeply committed to helping make a difference with the materials and training provided by the Church. Dr. Paredes is that champion. She is a neo-natologist who works in the Ministry of Health. She has helped coordinate the Newborn Resuscitation Training Programs in Peru for more than 10 years with Dr. Zollinger, our specialist.

She and a local team of Peruvian doctors trained by Dr. Zollinger over the years not only help when Dr. Zollinger comes for the "official" Church-sponsored programs, but they travel throughout Peru, usually at their own expense, several times a year sharing the techniques they have learned with other professionals. In fact, her group has worn out the simulators that they have been using and we are working to get four more through Customs so that they can continue this independent training.

Shortly before we began this year's initiative (training), we received the final reporting from last year's program. The people who were trained in Iquitos and Tarapoto have trained more than 900 other health professionals in the Helping Babies Breathe techniques they learned in last year's course. They also shared in their reports many experiences noting how the techniques that were taught have resulted in saving the lives of many newborns.

Helping Babies Breathe

Photos:

*Students practice helping a "newborn baby" with the help of their instructor, Maria.  

*After being taught, the students demonstrated their knowledge by teaching their group the things they had just learned.  

*Each student is given a certificate upon completion of showing competency in the material taught

in the course.  

*Group photo of all who attended one of the courses. 

*Local Church leader and the director of the state health department in Piura receiving the "formal" donation of materials by the Church.   

The purpose of the Helping Babies Breathe training program is not simply to teach the lifesaving techniques for a baby born with breathing problems, but to actually train the participants to teach others those techniques and to practice not only the skills for helping babies breathe, but the skills that are necessary to effectively teach this information to others. The participants practice the skills, and then practice teaching. In this way the effect can be magnified and the beneficiaries (Peruvian health personnel involved in childbirth) are not simply passive recipients of information, but conduits to share the information and techniques with others.

In addition to the training that lasted two days in each location, each local health department received 50 sets of training materials (baby simulator, flip charts, other charts) and over 1,000 student manuals. This will be shared throughout the networks where participants work as they train others. The Church also donated in each place simple equipment (ventilator, bag and small masks for preemies, penguin suctions, stethoscopes) to equip delivery rooms and to permit application of the techniques that were taught.

For us it has been an awesome and rewarding responsibility to coordinate these programs and to see the excitement of the participants as they recognize that they now have the skills to save babies lives and the skills to teach others how to do so. It has been a privilege for us to participate and become acquainted with these wonderful professionals.

We have been especially fortunate to work with the Zollingers, who have made 70 trips to South America in the 12 years they have been specialists to teach this program for the Church. Twenty-five of those trips have been to Peru. This loving donation of time and knowledge has been while he was a full-time practicing OB back in the U.S. They truly are an example of service to us and are an inspiration to the Peruvian doctors as well.

Helping Mothers Survive

Photos:  

*Hand sanitizer first to reduce infection risks  

*Gloves over sanitized hands to further protect the expectant mother  

*Childbirth with the simulator   

*The first man we have ever seen giving birth  

*Group photo of the course participants  

Helping Mothers Survive is a new program designed to teach simple techniques that can save the life of a mother when there are problems related to hemorrhage (bleeding) at birth. Maternal hemorrhage is a leading cause of death in Peruvian women at childbirth. This is the first time the Church has taught this program in South America and the first priority was to teach Peruvian professionals these techniques and also teach them how to teach others.

The key for the practical application of this knowledge is a birth simulator that is strapped on one of the instructors and can realistically simulate a number of variables involved in the birthing process. The baby can be delivered in a number of different directions, not simply head-first. The instructor can control how easily the baby passes through the birth canal. The placenta can come out easily, or need assistance.  It can come out intact, or torn.  The person wearing the simulator can control the amount of bleeding. The uterus can "shrink" after birth with proper massage.  A number of different potential bleeding emergencies can easily be simulated.

The simulator also permits catheterization of the bladder, placement of medications in suppository form and provides the possibility of a reasonably realistic set of birthing variables for instructional purposes. The didactic materials as well as the birth simulators were donated to five different health/hospital/professional networks that participated and who will continue to teach to others that which was learned.

We coordinated this program in Magdalena del Mar (Lima) and Saturday two of the U.S. doctors who have been trained in the program taught 12 Lima doctors the program and how to teach it to others. Monday found those 12 new instructors teaching 19 others not only the program, but how to teach it to others as well. The participants were selected because most of them are already involved in running training programs within their networks.

Our role has been to assure that materials for the courses were able to pass through Customs, get the materials to the course locations, arrange for facilities to host the training (in this case LDS chapels), arrange ground and air transportation for the instructional team along with their hotels and meals, arrange lunches and snacks for the participants during the course, and assure that all documentation necessary to realize the donation is correct and signed by proper Health Department authorities. Other than that, we are pretty much just along for the ride!