Skilled midwives are the difference between life and death, the difference between healthy mothers and horrendous fistula injuries and often they are also the difference between healthy babies and those born with HIV.
The Hamlin College of Midwives was established in 2007. For more than a decade now, Hamlin has worked with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and Regional Health Bureaus to establish Hamlin-supported Midwifery Clinics. Hamlin and the MoH are focussed on providing safe, effective, high quality care to ensure healthy mothers and babies.
The impact of this program cannot be overstated. Each week, midwives at the Hamlin-supported Midwifery Clinics deliver around 600 babies, undertake more than 1400 antenatal care visits and provide more than 800 interventions to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT).
Mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS can occur during pregnancy, delivery or as a result of breast feeding. Without preventative treatment up to 40% of children born to HIV-positive women will be infected.
In remote rural areas all over the world, midwives are a critical part of PMTCT and the largest group of health workers engaged in the fight against HIV.
In 2019 in partnership with Regional Government Health Bureaus, Hamlin Midwives provided PMTCT to more than 42000 expectant Ethiopian mothers and counselled mothers about their reproductive choices and family planning options.
Hamlin Midwives continuum of care provides holistic, comprehensive support for pregnant women and new mothers. They provide antenatal care, delivery, postnatal care, short acting family planning, long acting family planning interventions and screening for PMTCT.
The clinical training and leadership skills developed at the Hamlin College of Midwives along with the trust our midwives build with the women in their local communities means they are an effective conduits for delivery of PMTCT interventions.
