Dying wisdom: reviving traditional birthing practices
The program is about reviving traditional birthing practices to provide low cost and enhanced form of quality care during postpartum and for infant care.
About You
About You
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Childbirth Collective
Organization Website
Organization Country
India, TN, Chennai
Country where this project is creating social impact
India, TN, Thenkanikottai, Krishnagiri District
Is your organization a
Not registered
How long has your organization been operating?
1‐5 years
Has the organization received awards or honors? Please tell us about them
No
References - Please provide two references with a two-sentence biography, email address, and phone number for each
Mira Sadgopal: A feminist and one of the most noted person working on reviving traditional childbirth practices in India.
Email: miradakin@gmail.com
Ph: 09890144106
Imrana Qadeer: A a retired professor from centre of social medicine and community health, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She has extensively worked on Primary Health Care, Epidemiological Studies, Health Policy Analysis.
Email: imranaqadeer@gmail.com
Ph: 09717617013
The information you provide here will be used to fill in any parts of your profile that have been left blank, such as interests, organization information, and website. No contact information will be made public. Please uncheck here if you do not want this to happen..
Innovation
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Start-Up (a pilot that has just begun operating)
How long have you been in operation?
Operating for 1‐5 years
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
Birth Asphyxia is a global problem. According to WHO each year 4-9 million children die in the neonatal period. It is estimated 23% of deaths are due to birth asphyxia and 99% of these deaths occur in low and middle-income countries. In India pre term birth along with birth asphyxia constitute for 51% deaths among newborn. It has been observed that traditional birthing knowledge helps in brining down birth asphyxia and pre term birth related complications.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
Our secondary data substantiated our primary data that placental resuscitation of newborn is a global phenomenon for preventing birth asphyxia. Our two years research in the field area where we had an in-dept interview with the Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) and the community. The findings reiterate the fact that irrespective of institutionalizing births, home births are still the preferred choice and people have faith in TBAs skills especially during childbirth and postpartum care for both mother and the infant. It was found during the research that almost all the TBA had used the revival technique more than once in their complete career span with absolute positive results. The proposed intervention will explore the possibility of integrating traditional knowledge of basic newborn care and resuscitating newborn both at community and public health spaces.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
During our two years research we listed out the experienced TBA in resource poor setting especially where the Public Health System is inaccessible. We initially plan to take up the work with 8 TBA with each TBA looking after a population of 1,000 people approximately. Therefore making it a population of 8,000 approximately for the initial stage. The same will be extended after evaluation of the present work.
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
At Public Health System government has started an “infant corner” which, is expected to take care of newborn. But as we realized that although, Tamilnadu is one of the highly institutionalized childbirth state, people still prefer homebirths. Community base newborn care is completely in the hands of TBA and the extended family of the mother. Our peer is the community and local leaders who have full faith in the traditional system of childbirth and our challenge is to bring behavioral change among public health doctors and nurse. We plan to bring the change in behavior by demonstrating the effectiveness of the technique.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Social Impact
Founding Story: We want to hear about your "Aha!" moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution's potential to change the world.
As a group of professionals we have been working and observing the trends on infant deaths for past 12 years in different parts of the country with vast socio-economic background. In the past we encountered that in all most all the cases placenta base resuscitation is universal. To test this technique we conducted an in-dept interview of TBAs and recognized that consistently placental revival technique has been used by the TBAs birth asphyxia condition. Usually the technique is associated with rural poor who don’t have access to better public health system hence, opt for TBA but the technique has proven its worth when it was applied in a private hospital in Chennai for the same purpose. It was a turning point for us and we felt that more focused work needs to be done in favor of traditional childbirth knowledge.
Please describe the goal of your initiative; outline what you are trying to achieve
The goal of this initiative is to recognize and integrate the dying tradition of birthing, which invariably is more acceptable, economical and enhanced form of care.
What has been the impact of your solution to date?
The project is still in the initial stages to determine the impact at various parameters as it is envisaged for the future. Nevertheless, the group has identified the 8 TBAs and the geographical area which, covers the population of 10,000 approximately. The group has also sought the political willingness from the ruling party to support the work both financially (partially) and logistically.
What is your projected impact over the next five years?
It is understood that behavior change among public health system in accepting traditional knowledge is a long process. Nevertheless, it is also an advantage that still community respects this knowledge and values its benefits. We plan to bring this behavior change based on hard evidence where each childbirth conducted by 8 TBAs in one years time will be evaluated at quarterly basis. A constant inputs will be sought both from professional working in Indian System of Medicine and bio-medical practioneers.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and track growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your six-month milestone
Task 1
Developing a comprehensive action research toll specifically for newborn care.
Task 2
Identifying field research assistants.
Task 3
Developing evaluation toll
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your 12-month milestone
Task 1
Based on evaluation re-examining the future work.
Task 2
Liaising with local health authorities.
Task 3
Examining the lessons learned and restructure the work for future intervention.
Sustainability
Tell us about your partnerships
In this initiative our collaborative partners are TBAs, Community, local leaders and group of professional who have always helped us in giving perspective to our work.
Are you currently targeting other specific populations, locations, or markets for your innovation? If so, where and why?
No
What type of operating environment and internal organizational factors make your innovation successful?
Our innovation is acceptable not only at community level but it also has political will as, it is partially supported (financially) by the elected representatives of the area. We strongly feel that the success of this innovation lies in the ownership which, both the community and TBAs share commonly. We as a group of people who are involved in implementing this idea are professionally as well as emotionally integrated with the fact that we see a lot of potential in home base childbirth where postpartum and infant care was always stronger than the hospital base care.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren't specified within the list
The present intervention has a larger vision of reutilizing the public health infrastructure (non functional sub centers) by the TBAs and starting a local health study centre which understand local health tradition and integrate Indian system of medicine as it is closely related to TBA practice.
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 | 14 weeks agoShalini Arvindan said: Thanks Akhila for your encouragement. We have already narrow down our area and TBAs with whom we would take it further. We have a good ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 14 weeks agoShalini Arvindan said: Akhila to take our conversation further we do have the required research data ( we have collected data in past 2 yrs where we have also ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 14 weeks agoShalini Arvindan said: Thanks Akhila for raising your query I will take it one by one as you have put forth. Yes Tamilnadu has better Public health system and ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 14 weeks agoShalini Arvindan said: Thanks ruchi for the comments and I agree that Tamilnadu is one of the better off state for institutional childbirth. The area where we ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 14 weeks agoAkila Maheshwari said: I like the idea of working on birth asphyxia and it is indeed fantastic to complement and train the traditional birthing professionals ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 14 weeks agoAkila Maheshwari said: It seems right now you have no research data to substantiate your traditional birthing technique towards reducing infant mortality ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 14 weeks agoAkila Maheshwari said: It seems a bit of a contradiction that Tamil Nadu has one of the better Public Health Systems and the children are born at home. Exactly ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 15 weeks agoRuchi Dass said: The research work is great for sure. Before we come up with a solution research is mandatory. Almost one in four women (23 percent) who ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 15 weeks agoShalini Arvindan updated this Competition Entry. |
| 15 weeks agoShalini Arvindan updated this Competition Entry. |
