Sierra Leone Midwifery Care

This means recognizing each woman’s social, emotional, physical, spiritual and cultural needs. It also acknowledge that a woman and her newborn baby does not exist independently of the woman’s social and emotional environment. This includes incorporating an understanding in assessment and provision of health care (Yanti et al., 2015). The fundamental principles of women-centred care ensures a focus on pregnancy and childbirth as the start of family life, not just as isolated clinical episodes. These motherhood phases take into complete account the meaning and the values of each woman. Providing women centred care helps women make an informed choices, being involved in and having control over their own care, this also includes their relationship with their midwives (Johnson et al., 2003). This demonstrates that midwives are able to attend for women during pregnancy, childbirth and in early parenting years. In addition to this, midwives also provide education for women in order to have a healthy lifestyle (Woods et al.,

The ANMC states that midwives should promote safe and effective practice. This competency standard involves: Applying knowledge, skills and attitudes to enable woman centred care, provide or support midwifery continuity of care and manage the midwifery care of women and their babies. Midwives providing continuity of care are able to provide safe and effective practice. They know there patients well from the woman’s blood test results to the woman’s birth plan. The midwife can provide safe and effective practice because she knows the woman best. Midwifery Continuity of care is associated with a reduction in the rate of a number of interventions, without compromising safety of care (Spiby &

Being a midwife refers to a profession where the midwife would work in partnership with the women throughout her pregnancy, labour and the postpartum period. Not only is being a midwife women-centred, however, their role also includes ensuring the partner and family members are prepared and aware of the process. Within a women’s health, the midwife should focus on health, family planning, nutrition, domestic and other health issues as the main priority is the

Maternal mortality represents more than the loss of lives for individual women, as it also reflects the larger value and prioritization of women 's health and threatens the health and survival of families, young children, and even the communities in which they live (Royston and Armstrong, 1989). Maternal mortality is unacceptably high (WHO, 2015b). Globally, approximately 830 women die every day from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications (ibid.). The causes of maternal mortality are predominately preventable and can be classified into three fundamental causes: (1) medical - consisting of direct medical problems and pre-existent/coexistent medical problems that are aggravated by pregnancy, (2) underlying - social and legal conditions, and (3) health systems laws and policies that address availability, accessibility, and quality of reproductive health services (PHP et al, 2011).

In America, midwives attend less than 8% of all births and less than 1% of those occur outside a hospital. At the same time, the US

The Journal of Global Health Perspectives is an online open-access research journal. In addition to publishing primary research they also publish articles that relate meaningful experiences, observations and reflections from members of the global health community. To publish an article in the journal the article had to be E mailed to them along with a signed copyright policy and indicate the category of the work. Current topics of interest are Child health inequality, Maternal health in India, Ebola eradication.

Sierra Leone endured a three-day lockdown. The lockdown forced the people to stay in their homes, and permitted them from moving about the country. During this time, Houses were searched and 130 new cases of Ebola were found. The Ebola virus can have a mortality rate up to 90%, which is greatly affecting Sierra Leones population of 6.1 million people.

I chose to read The Lassa Ward: One Man’s Fight Against One of the World’s Deadliest Diseases for the AP Human Geography summer assignment. The Lassa Ward is authored by Ross I. Donaldson, who received his doctor of medicine and master of public health degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles. St. Martin’s Press, headquartered in New York, NY, published the novel in 2009. Dr. Donaldson’s memoir focuses on how he treated Lassa cases in Sierra Leone, in the midst of an outbreak of the virus during the summer months of 2003. Through explanations of his surroundings and the ward where he treated his patients, the book addresses the medical need of the region by describing the primitive condition of medicine occurring in the third-world country that is Sierra Leone. Thus, The Lassa Ward effectively and captivatingly communicates the necessity encompassing the current medical situation in Sierra Leone through its detailed descriptions and arguments regarding the culture of the people living there and the region itself.

The first piece of literature analyzed was a scholarly article titled, “Nurse Midwife and Scientist: Stuck in the Middle” by Aleeca F. Bell, published in 2007. Bell has a Ph. D, is a Registered Nurse and a Certified Nurse Midwife at the University of Chicago, Illinois. Bell’s ethos is established by her many degrees, her teaching of nursing classes, her many publications and academic awards, and her experiences at the Alivio Medical Center and the Will

Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries (CMACE) (2011) Saving mothers’ lives; reviewing maternal deaths to make motherhood safer: 2006-2008. BJOG 18(1): 1-203. London. Blackwell Synergy.

30 short years after declaring independence from Britain, The Sierra Leone Civil War began in 1991 and concluded in 2002. The war left the country in disarray, with little government authority and resources to rebuild. Foreign aid quickly rushed into the country, including the WASH sector that lacked coordination and focus. This made the country highly dependent on foreign aid to continue building efforts of sanitation materials. In 2006, an estimated 30 percent of people in Sierra Leone had access to improved sanitation and only 17 percent in rural areas. The inadequate sanitation rates play a major role in Sierra Leone’s high under-5-mortality rate, which is one of the highest in the world at 182 deaths per 1,000 live births. Sanitation

This is the beginning of the mother’s involvement with the midwife. This is an opportunity for both parties to establish a personal relationship, partnership. This is where education exchange can occur, recognition of responsibilities, options and choices are determined which are supported and discussed with the mother and her supporters. (Pairman, 2010, pg. 431-432)

This article is a case study about the non-profit NGO Midwives for Haiti, specifically looking into the task shifting models that have been used in low-resource countries such as Zaire, Ethiopia and Haiti. Task shifting is basically the rational and appropriate redistribution of specific tasks from highly qualified health workers to lower-level health workers. This helps to use available human resources efficiently, as the lower-level health workers can help to satisfy necessary health needs with shorter training time and fewer qualifications. This organization specifically trains skilled birth attendants and uses various methods, such as mobile prenatal clinics, to provide skilled prenatal, labor, delivery and postpartum care to rural women

Because in many developing countries, there are all too often issues with women’s rights and negligence in women’s health, they are also striving to specifically provide women’s health care to those who are pregnant or who have been sexually abused. Just this year, Medecins Sans Frontiers notes one of their major accomplishments to be treating over 100 individuals for sexual assault after two instances of mass rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo by militias.

Firstly, the introduction of free maternity health services in all public health facilities in Kenya. Secondly, the conceptualization and launch of Human Resources for Health aims at addressing such critical issues like staff recruitment, deployment, and training among health (Ministry of Devolution, 2013). Thirdly, the Implementation of a Community Health Strategy by workers aims at strengthening Level I hospital services. Fourthly, the capacity of households is upgraded not only to demand services from providers, but also to know and gradually achieve their rights to equitable, good quality health care. During the period of 2008-2012 nearly 2530 community health units were established in the health sector (Ministry of Devolution, 2013).Furthermore, the proportion of children who are under 5 years sleeping under Insecticide Treated Bed Nets has increased progressively from around 2.9% in 2000 to 42.2% in the year 2011 ( ibid). This has been attributed to massive investment in free mass net distribution and routine distribution of bed nets to expectant mothers and children under five in Maternal Child Health clinics (MCH) (Ministry of Devolution, 2013). Research shows that the proportion of children in Kenya treated with appropriate anti-malaria medicines declined from 64.4% in 2000 to 23% in 2008 (Ministry of Devolution, 2013).The Kenyan government also scaled up efforts to eliminate