Helping Babies Breathe Program

Teaching the staff about neonatal resuscitation

This week at work we accomplished quiete a bit. I gave my first CME (continuing medical education talk) on neonatal resucsitation. I had purchased the Helping Babies Breathe kit from the American Academy of Pediatrics before I left in order to have a hands on kit to teach the staff about neonatal resuscitation and immediate postnatal care. This kit comes with a flip chart, bulb suction, bag and mask, cord ties, umbilical cord, hat, blanket, several posters, and a baby which can manually be given a heart rate and umbilical pulse. HBB is an easy and effective way to teach the basics of newborn resuscitation to people in clinics worldwide.

The doll comes deflated and can be inflated with air or water. Anne and I choose to fill our flat, plastic baby outside at the water spigot between the clinic and primary school. Little did we know what a scene we would create. To fill the baby you must hold the valve by the babies head. Well, the nursery students were on break at the time and running around outside playing. Naturally they wondered what we were doing and soon a huge crowed of kids had gathered as we filled up the NeoNatalie doll. Anne and I are used to crowds of kids staring at us "mzungus" so we did not think much of it. Later that night as we were showing the Sisters the NeoNatalie doll Sister Edith asked us if we were outside with the doll during the school day. Apparently the nursery students had come up to Sister Edith, the assistant principal, after their break and told here that the two white girls were washing a dead baby at the spigot. The doll's eyes do not open, and the mouth does not close so it does look a bit like a dead baby now that we look at it, but  we did not mean to traumatize a group of nursery students by filling up a doll!

Showing the school children the Helping Babies Breathe kit

On another note the CME was succesful and went smoothly. We started hands on teaching with the mannequin with individual staff workers as well as demonstrated through hand motions the basics of newborn care to mothers coming in for antenatal care.

Other things we did this week....
-we created a possible mission statement, vision statement, and a set of values for the clinic (Hey Rush friends- iCare, iCount is now called PREACH in Uganda- patient centered, respect, excellence, accountability, compassion, honesty)
-we made a "Meet our Staff" poster with the clnic wrokers names, titles, and pictures. It was a hit, except now half the staff wants a "better" picture of themselves on teh wall
-we have a soccer game between the clinic and teaching staff planned, but unfortunately it had to be postponed until the end of November due to testing at the school. Excitement though is building for the big game.