Maternal Health Assistance by CDA

I'm sure all females wish to become mothers at some point in their lives. Becoming a mother is a beautiful feeling and a blessing, but many a times we've noticed that mothers-to-be aren't as careful about their's and baby's health as they should be.

In Urban cities, mothers-to-be are given numerous facilities like ambulances, constant and undivided attention by the female doctors, the family's usually supportive and so on. Our media is also playing an important role in raising awareness about the do's and don'ts while one's expecting.

Nonetheless, females in the rural areas are still deprived of these life-saving conveniences. Many couples rely on Mid-wives only, who aren't well equipped in dealing with the complicated delivery cases. As a result, the mother or the new born dies or in some cases, both.

Therefore, to combat the increasing percentage of female deaths during pregnancy, Channan Development Association (CDA) has decided to step forward and take action.

"We decided to help the women who are expecting because we noticed an alarmingly high rate of pregnancy deaths. Awareness will do women good," Alyas Rahmat explained his reasons for starting a project of such nature.

CDA executed a three month project called "Save Pregnant Women and Infants" at Nishat Colony in Lahore. They held seminars and group discussions - raising awareness about the precautionary measures that should be taken during the pregnancy and at the time of delivery. They encouraged couples to seek medical assistance at the right time, rather than delaying and involving Mid-wives in child birth.

We interviewed Alyas and he informed us about the execution of his project. "Government dispensaries have agreed to arrange free medical assistance for females. They've started counselling couples and so far 7 out of them have agreed to regularly visit the lady doctor. Apart from this, Dr Shahida is going to do free routinely medical check-ups of the pregnant women between 4.00 till 6.00 pm, twice a week," he said with bright eyes and a proud face.

The work that CDA has undertaken is very important for the development of a healthy society. Only healthy mothers can give birth to healthy infants.

Mother and infant health is one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) identified by the United Nations. I'm very glad that our youngsters are promoting and working towards MDGs.