Stories: Newborn Health
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A Not-So-Grand Tour of Ethiopia’s Top Hospital
DAVID GREENE, HOST: A few years ago, Ethiopia's health minister noted that there were more Ethiopian doctors working in Chicago than in their own country. That country has long had a weak health care system, and now some Ethiopian doctors are heading back with big ambitions. They want to build a state-of-the-art hospital, a place where people can get...
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Kangaroo Mother Care Could Save Millions of Lives in Poor Countries
In a simple home in the village of Mosebo, Ethiopia—an earthen floor and walls made of wood and mud—a woman sat on a mattress on the floor with her crying, 8-month-old son. The mother, Alemitu Kelkay, pressed him to her breast, and eventually he quieted down. A normal enough scene, for most. But when this boy,...
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Ethiopian Newborns: Challenges That Remain
“If she hadn’t started bleeding she would have had to struggle giving birth at home like me.” Those were the impactful words we heard from the mother of a young pregnant woman we met while visiting the “Lie and Wait House” for expecting mothers about to give birth. We were in the...
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Hope in the Struggle for Ethiopian Maternal and Newborn Care
Reaching Mosebo village, about 42 kilometers outside of Bahir Dar in rural Ethiopia, is not for the faint of heart. It requires a land cruiser, patience, and a spirit of adventure to cover the hour and a half drive on bumpy, muddy roads to reach Mosebo and see how more than 90 percent of Ethiopians live. If it starts to rain, as...
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Mosebo Village Health Post
We had just spent the night at the source of the Blue Nile River. Lake Tana sits in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, and as our caravan of Land Cruisers wove through the countryside from Bahir Dar to Mosebo I took in deep gulping breaths of sweet fresh Ethiopian air. The lush colors of our surroundings looked to me like they...
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Ethiopia’s Adare Hospital
I've been in Ethiopia for almost two weeks now, and this trip has reminded me that I experience something very specific when I visit Africa. I feel more alive here, more able to breathe and absorb what’s happening around me. Every thing is heightened; interactions more meaningful. And yet there’s a push-pull, an incongruence:...
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Ethiopia Newborns and Maternova Innovations
The first thing I pulled out of the bag was the strip of condoms. As a happily married mother of four I can’t remember the last time I handled a strip of condoms, and I confess that they made me giggle. I was checking out the contents of the Maternova backpack I was bringing to Ethiopia, and was...
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A Visit to Mosebo
Twenty-seven years ago, Tirgno Alamrew was born in the rural village of Mosebo, nestled outside Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. With the help of a translator, Tirgno tells me her mother gave birth to her in the way most mothers in Ethiopia give birth: at home, with the assistance of an untrained Traditional Birth Attendant. I’ve learned that many mothers...
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First Day on the Ground Learning About Maternal and Newborn Health in Ethiopia
Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in Africa with a population of 90 million people, stunned the world by achieving the Millennium Development Goal #4 of reducing the mortality rates of children under age 5 by two-thirds well ahead of the 2015 deadline. In a country in which 95% of the population lives outside of an urban center in rural, remote and hard to reach...
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10 Facts About Ethiopia
Statue of the Lion of Judah. Photo: Rjruiziii via Wikimedia Commons I’ve learned a few intriguing things about Ethiopia in the midst of preparation for my International Reporting Project trip. Having never been before, I’m excited and eager to learn about the country, and culture. We will be reporting on newborn health when there, but...