Cuba's Focus on Preventive Medicine Pays Off

As a way to help train frontline health workers in developing countries about childbirth practices and child health, a nurse practitioner launched a video production project to offer short instructional films. In the 10 years since launching the project, the films have overall been viewed "more than 450 million times on YouTube, and they've been downloaded more than 200,000 times in 200 countries."

Fistula repair surgery has become routine in the state of Kebbi in Nigeria thanks to the implementation of a health center that has made treatment easier for women to access. The center aims to address both medical and societal causes, by addressing underlying issues and patient-centered health practices.

A new three year program is educating, training, and deploying midwives to six northern Nigerian states. This influx of midwives has helped to ensure safe deliveries as well as provide women with perinatal and antenatal care.

The CASA school in Guanajuato was founded to train midwives and advocate for their role during childbirth. CASA's students receive an education in modern medicine as well as traditional practices, with the goal of being able to effectively care for indigenous women. The Mexican government recognized midwives as health care professionals as 2011, and schools based on the CASA model have been started across the country.

Three hospitals throughout Mississippi rank at the top for having the lowest number of C-sections in first-time, full-term pregnancies. The hospitals achieved this by making midwife care a regular part of the birthing experience, despite not having a midwifery certification program in the state.

Operated by The Neo Child Initiative, the ReachOut Project provides nutrional counseling and screening to parents and their children in underserved communities, free of charge. Since 2015, the ReachOut Project has supported 20,000 people across 10 communities in the state.

Black parents are at greater risk of experiencing serious complications during pregnancy and childbirth, which is why preserving Black birth care, like doulas, is so important to preventing unnecessary deaths and medical interventions. The doula community is growing and there’s currently a push among local doulas and providers to grow the network of doulas of color to increase the accessibility of relevant and representative birth care.

As rural hospitals stopped providing maternity care, Chatham Hospital opened a new Maternity Care Center in September 2020. The five-bed unit provides care to low-risk mothers and newborns and is staffed with family physicians trained in obstetrics and surgery, to keep costs down. In three years, the Maternity Care Center has delivered 402 babies, with birth volumes gradually increasing each year.

OdonAssist is an inflatable device designed to help better perform assisted vaginal births (AVB). Several organizations, including the WHO, have been working to get the device on the market, especially in areas with high maternal and infant mortality rates. AVBs are proven to reduce risks during birth, like excessive bleeding, and clinical studies have shown that the OdonAssist device is both safe and effective in performing AVBs, as 88.5% of uses have been successful.

In an effort to combat high rates of maternal mortality and healthcare disparities among pregnant Black women, MLK Community Hospital offers combined care from certified nurse midwives and obstetricians to ensure a safe, healthy birth. Midwifery offers more sensitive and individualized care and is also linked to fewer C-sections and preterm births. At MLK Community Hospital, 14% of its first-time, low-risk births involved a C-section, compared to 23% of such births across the state.