Perinatal Technologies Enhance Maternal Instinct
Hanna Kulbyaka had made up her mind not to keep her baby even before she had delivered. She was young and single with no one to help her, and thought that she would not be able to properly care for a child.
Five years ago, most likely no one in the Lutsk Maternity Hospital would have questioned her decision, and the newborn would most likely have been sent to a state institution. But such indifferent attitudes by medical personnel have started to change since the USAID-funded Maternal and Infant Health Project (MIHP) began implementing effective birthing and child care practices at Lutsk and in 22 other maternity hospitals across Ukraine.
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Bound to be together
Photo Credit: Oleksandr Golubov |
MIHP has worked with the Lutsk Maternity Hospital to create a leading, high-quality care center in Ukraine, where all staff understand the importance and necessity of acquiring contemporary professional skills, and implementing WHO guidelines and protocols of care. Since 2003, the hospital has switched from outdated procedures to instituting modern evidence-based practices. A major achievement was substituting separate nurseries and maternal wards with family-friendly post-partum rooms where the mother and baby, along with a companion or relative, can be together from the first minutes after birth. The maternity hospital also introduced immediate mother-baby skin-to-skin contact procedures and appropriate counseling on various maternal and child-care issues.
These new approaches have greatly influenced many mothers who had thought of giving away their children. “Often a mother who has made up her mind to abandon her baby right after delivery begins having second thought after skin-to-skin contact,” says Olena Kurak, the Chief neonatologist at Lutsk Maternity Hospital.
Even if the mother remains firm about leaving the baby, she cannot do so while remaining at the maternity hospital. Lutsk Maternity personnel, and the staff psychologists in particular, supervise and counsel the mother on infant care. During the maternity stay, the mother, not a nurse, feeds her baby, measures its temperature twice daily and changes its clothing. Often after three days with her newborn, the mother becomes more confident about her ability to take care of her son or daughter. She has a change of heart, as well as mind.
Hanna is grateful for the MIHP procedures that helped her decide to keep her son. “I want to express my deepest gratitude to the maternity personnel who helped me to feel like a real mother. I kept my baby because with their help, I felt confident that I could give my boy the best,” says Hanna proudly.
Since the implementation of the Maternal and Infant Health Project in the Lutsk Maternity Hospital, the number of abandoned babies has dropped from 15 in 2002 (before MIHP) to four in 2006. At the same time, the number of deliveries has doubled, from 2,000 in 2002 to 4,000 in 2006.
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