WUNRN
Liberia - Maternity Waiting Homes
February
21, 2011
By: Mariko
Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver
The West African
country of
A ‘maternity waiting home’ is a facility, within easy reach of a hospital or
health center, that is equipped with medical supplies and provides antenatal
care with skilled birth attendants and emergency obstetric care. Many women in
Bong County live great distances from any kind of medical
center or clinic, so giving them access to a nearby home up to three
weeks before their expected due date can help ensure that they are close to the
life-saving services they need. The Liberian homes can house up to eight women
at a time and will be run by traditional birth attendants who will provide education
on health and family planning, and encourage breastfeeding and birth spacing. Africare,
an NGO supporting the project, believes family planning is a key component to
decreasing maternal mortality.
Six other parts of Bong County will soon be getting a maternity waiting home
with the second home scheduled to open by the end of the month. Funded by USAID’s Child Survival Innovation Grant, the
effectiveness of these homes will be determined with the assistance of
researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. These
researchers will work to compare the birth outcomes of women in the seven
maternity homes with women in six other areas of Bong County that do not have
waiting homes.
The project also
includes training 130 traditional birth attendants and certified midwives in
how to use cell phones to text maternal and infant health data to a central
site—the hope is that this action will provide better health data for analysis
in the future. President Johnson Sirleaf knows accurate data are important to
understanding problems and understanding solutions, especially around maternal
and child health. In her remarks at the launch of the Women’s Health Commission for the African
Region she implored, “But we must never forget that behind these numbers,
behind these statistics, there are real people – real women like us, our
sisters, and mothers, our cousins and daughters.” With such strong political
will and investment in innovative new programs, there is great hope that more
women in Liberia will be saved.”