The Maternity Ward

Advance # 982168

Francis Kanu is a mother of five: three boys and one-year-old twin girls, Mary Faith and May Joy. Not knowing that she was carrying twins, Francis first came to Kissy Center when a neighbor brought her after she began to bleed in her eighth month of pregnancy. The Maternity Ward and natal classes at Kissy Center are critical components to addressing larger community and maternal health issues in Sierra Leone.

Every Wednesday and Friday morning, the waiting room at UMC Health and Maternity Center, Kissy is bustling with nurses and new mothers. As maternity staff walk around taking vitals and registering expectant or new mothers for care, a television is brought out into the lobby. At once the conversations stop as videos about child malnutrition and preventative care instruct the mothers. The biweekly natal class ends with a nurse teaching a song-and-dance routine to the mothers to help them remember how to prepare food for their new babies.

Maternal Morbidity

The average woman in Sierra Leone will give birth to six children. Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal morbidity rates in the world: 144 out of every 1,000 women die during or as a result of childbirth or pregnancy.

Founding the Kissy Center Maternity Ward

The Maternity Ward at UMC Health and Maternity Center, Kissy was established in 1996. Janet Miu, head midwife, led the new unit.

In its first days the maternity ward housed only three patients—one of them being Ms. Miu’s own sister. Many women in Africa prefer to have their babies at home. Traditional birth attendants (TBAs) assist in childbirth using traditional, and at times unsafe, methods. Knowing that there were many mothers who were at-risk for difficult or even fatal deliveries, Ms. Miu decided to go into the community herself to educate pregnant women. She reached out to TBAs and taught them appropriate practices, including basic principles like wearing latex gloves during delivery. She also worked with the TBAs to help them identify high-risk pregnancies and determine when they should refer women to a hospital for delivery. High-risk or potentially dangerous deliveries in Sierra Leone are often a result of malnutrition and hypertension, resulting in hemorrhages, obstructed labor, eclampsia, or uterine ruptures.

Comprehensive Care

Ms. Miu’s determination and hands-on approach worked. As a result of her going directly into the community, working with the trusted TBAs, and establishing a high success rate for deliveries at the hospital, the Maternity Ward became a highly regarded and essential component of both the Kissy Center and the surrounding community. In 2004 alone the Kissy Center Maternity Ward delivered more than 3,000 babies.

Prenatal Care

Today, the maternity ward offers a preventative prenatal clinic for expecting mothers. Every Fast fact box Wednesday and Friday morning women come to the clinic to undergo a routine check-up, get weighed and have their blood pressure taken. More than 400 women attend the clinic each week. Ms. Miu has also started a postnatal clinic for new mothers and their babies, wherein the women are instructed on how to feed and care for their children, and the babies are monitored and receive essential immunizations.

The Maternity Ward staff also collaborates with the hospital’s Friends Unit, an HIV/AIDS care and outreach program, and the Nutrition Program to provide pregnant women with comprehensive, personalized care. Through the Friends Unit, HIV-positive mothers participate in a special Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission Program, wherein patients are given critical drugs that prevent the spread of the virus to their babies during childbirth. Postnatal care, counseling and livelihood support are given to these mothers after the birth of their child as well. Through the Nutrition Program, women and children identified as malnourished are provided with a nutrient-rich porridge made of proteins, fats, oils, and grains that are essential to child development and new mother recovery.