Helping Babies Breathe: Training for Newborn Care in Zambia
Globally, the average infant mortality rate is about 29 deaths per 1,000 live births. In Zambia, it’s more than 42 deaths per 1,000 live births.
All women and their newborns deserve quality care at the time of birth, which is a vulnerable time when most preventable deaths occur.
Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) is a training program developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) used in developing countries to help ensure health care providers have the necessary skills and competencies to provide high quality care to newborns after birth.
Through the HBB program, IMR is training birth attendants in the essential skills of newborn resuscitation. The goal is to have at least one person who is skilled in neonatal resuscitation at the birth of every baby.
HBB Training in Zambia
As part of our medical mission trip to Zambia in December 2022, IMR will host HBB Master Trainers who will train birth attendants to use HBB techniques to save the lives of newborns and reduce the rate of infant mortality in Zambia.
Globally, the average infant mortality rate is about 29 deaths per 1,000 live births. In Zambia, it’s more than 42 deaths per 1,000 live births.
A key concept of HBB is The Golden Minute®. Within one minute of birth, a baby should be breathing well or should be ventilated with a bag and mask. The Golden Minute identifies the steps that a birth attendant must take immediately after birth to evaluate the baby and stimulate breathing.
HBB focuses on methods that all persons who care for babies at birth can learn. We want them to be able to care for healthy babies and/or assist babies who do not breathe on their own.
Helping Babies Breathe is incredibly powerful in its ability to teach basic lifesaving skills for the first minutes of a baby’s life. The education for birth attendants can dramatically reduce infant mortality rates in the developing world. I can’t wait to teach as many as possible the skills I learned!
Make a Donation Today
Help us provide this training module to Zambian birth attendants by making a donation to IMR. Your gift will help to train birth attendants and equip each member of the class with a neonatal resuscitator and a penguin suction device to help clear babies’ airways. The end goal is to create a skilled cadre with the ability to train others in their communities, resulting in a sustainable program that reduces newborn mortality.
Be a world changer! Partner with IMR as we create HAPPY BIRTHDAYS for countless children around the world!
$250
The cost to train one birth attendant and provide him or her with the equipment needed to help a newborn breathe.
Priceless
Each life that will be saved when a newborn baby in distress starts to breathe on its own because of the training you helped to fund.
A donation as little as $25 will make a difference. Please, donate now!
Never underestimate your ability to make a difference in this world.
