Addressing Maternal Mortality Rates
Women throughout the world deliver their babies at home, alone and unassisted. Other times, they deliver in facilities that are understocked in professional resources, equipment, and medications. In both instances, when complications arise, disaster ensues. Babies die, women die, children are orphaned, and families are broken. Our project location of Madagascar is no different. Here, a woman’s lifetime risk that she’ll die in childbirth is 1 in 45.
To support maternal and infant well-being on the island, Purpose on the Planet has therefore partnered with the Sarobidy Maternity Center (SMC) in Mahajanga, which is passionately working to change the current reality – one mother and one baby at a time.
Every day, over 800 women die in pregnancy or childbirth due to preventable causes. Most of these occur in the developing world.
World Health Organization (WHO)
The Center was established in 2013, and Sarobidy is the word for precious in Malagasy. The SMC team passionately believe that the women, babies are the family unit are ALL precious. They share the belief that every woman has the right to quality and compassionate medical care and education, specific to her pregnancy, baby, birth and the time period following birth.
The vital work done at the Center is built around a 12-month long program that is founded on quality medical care, compassion and relationship building. The SMC team members know the women by name as well as each of their personal stories. They walk them through pregnancy, support them through a safe delivery and postpartum period, and empower them with the knowledge to care for their new babies.
Hear from the SMC Director and see the Center in action!
Here is a summary of the key elements that the program provides to each woman.
1. Prenatal Care
Reports tell us that 80% of women in Madagascar experience only one prenatal visit during their pregnancies. However, that number drops drastically to just 40% of women who receive four prenatal visits. This high percentage of limited or minimal care opens the door to unforeseen complications during pregnancy. And, outcomes can become even more troubling considering the low percentage of births (51%) that are attended by skilled health personnel.
The Sarobidy Maternity Center provides free-of-charge comprehensive prenatal services including weekly health education, laboratory testing, sonography, medications and vitamins, high-protein snacks, and childbirth education for both the expectant mom and her birth companion of choice. This care contrasts current norms elsewhere in the country: Through the Center, SMC clients receive 10 prenatal visits on average throughout the course of their pregnancies.
2. Medical Screening & Health Education
The Sarobidy Maternity Center staff provides comprehensive medical screening to the local women through each prenatal visit, including laboratory testing, as well as ultrasound services throughout pregnancy. As a result, staff can identify and treat the conditions that most frequently lead to poor maternal and infant health outcomes within Madagascar communities.
At the heart of all work at the Sarobidy Maternity Center is the desire to see women empowered with knowledge as it relates to their body, their pregnancies, and their babies. Weekly throughout their pregnancies — and in the six months following delivery — women receive comprehensive health education. Topics range from fetal growth and nutrition to labor and birth. They also cover the immediate postpartum period, breastfeeding, handling infant sickness, dealing with sexually transmitted infections, managing family planning…and so much more!
3. Labor & Delivery
Hear one woman’s story and how you can impact women like her.
The dedicated team of midwives at the Center closely monitor mother and baby throughout labor, and they steward these new lives into the world. Their support focuses on treating birth as a natural process, and providing a calm, gentle and safe environment during labor itself.
Additionally, they are also trained in common emergency obstetrical complications, and they have an ambulance onsite at their disposal for any hospital transfers should the need arise. For all emergency transfers, the Sarobidy Maternity Center also pays 50% of hospital expenses.
4. Postpartum & Well-baby Care
The first days, weeks, and months after birth are a vulnerable time for new mothers and infants. In a country where postpartum care is non-existent, the Sarobidy Maternity Center provides valuable monitoring services and postpartum guidance to ensure continued health for the mother and baby.
This process includes 3-4 postpartum home visits within the first 2 weeks after delivery, followed by weekly visits back to the Center by the women for postpartum coaching. This includes breastfeeding support advice, plus healthcare and nutrition information to promote optimal infant development.
Fight Maternal Mortality – Receive Personal Stories & Faces of Hope
In a culture where women are abused on multiple levels during pregnancy and childbirth, SMC’s desire is that each woman can instead experience gentle, compassionate and competent medical care throughout this precious time in her life. The ultimate goal of the program is for women to graduate from the Sarobidy Maternity Center with (chubby!) breastfed babies in their arms, knowledge in their heads, and a diploma in their hands when their babies reach six months of age.
The valuable work that is being done at the Sarobidy Maternity Center can only be made possible through the generous contributions of individuals, churches and nonprofit organizations that support this most worthy and unique program. This is why we’re so pleased to share with all donors, who sponsor an expectant mother for a week, a month, or a full year of the program, a sequence of personal insights into the precious journey you are facilitating for women and families in the Mahajanga community.
Healthy Mother & Baby Program: 3 Phases of Feedback
- Shortly after receipt of your donation, you will be provided with a personal profile and photo of each of the women that you will be directly supporting for the next 12 months. Those assigned to your contribution will have very recently enrolled in the program at the Sarobidy Maternity Center and will still be in the first trimester of their pregnancy.
- Then at 36 weeks in the pregnancy cycle, you will receive a progress update and photo. This is the typical date at which the mother and her chosen birth companion attend the childbirth education class.
- Finally, you will receive a photo of the mother and new-born child in the weeks immediately following delivery.
If you’re inspired by the work at Sarobidy Maternity Center and would like to support its efforts to tackle maternal mortality, here are 3 ways you can support a woman by adopting the Healthy Mother & Baby Plan:
Address Infant and Maternal Mortality through Purpose on the Planet and the Sarobidy Maternity Center:
Empowering women in Madagascar with education and compassionate medical care during pregnancy, labor and delivery, and the postpartum period.