Posted by Heather Dyer on Feb 07, 2014
Would you like to get involved in saving lives in Nicaragua? Would you like to be involved in a collaborative and sustainable effort to “Help Babies Breathe” in Nicaragua and to help secure a Rotary Foundation Global Grant? The Rotary Club of La Crosse East would welcome an invitation from your club to present a program about this life-saving project.

Please contact Tom Mickelson, Member, La Crosse East at 608-516-9414 or mickelson@gdinet.com for a presentation on this program at one of your regularly scheduled meetings. Making a donation to this project is as easy as sending a check to the Rotary Club of La Crosse with HBB in the memo line. 

Global Partners, Gundersen Health Systems, the Rotary Clubs of Matagulpa, Nicaragua, La Crosse Downtown, and La Crosse East, are collaborating on completing needs assessments and sustainable strategies to reduce infant mortality in Nicaragua. Needs assessments and health assessments facilitated by Global Partners and local personnel in Nicaragua have revealed that newborn care is a primary need in rural areas. Relationships with the Rotary Club of Matagalpa, Nicaragua along with local pediatricians and other organizations in Nicaragua will make this project sustainable. 

SINCE 2012, Global Partners has been sending teams to Nicaragua to teach Helping Babies Breathe techniques. The HBB course is designed to educate Nicaraguan health professionals, community health workers and lay midwives to assist a baby who is not breathing at birth within the first minute of life considered “the Golden Minute.” 

“Based upon January 1, 2012 data from the CIA World Factbook, the infant mortality in Nicaragua is 22 infant deaths per 1,000 live births (compared, for example, to the United States of 6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, Japan of 2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births or Afghanistan of 122 infant deaths per 1,000 live births).” 

The HBB courses in Nicaragua follow a train-the-trainer model and include:
  • Two 6 hour sessions facilitated by HBB certified professionals which include:
    • first day, participants learn how to teach the course;
    • second day, first day participants help teach the course to community members;
    • practice on a life-like baby manikin which mimics breathing and pulsing;
    • a kit to each participant with breathing bag and mask nasal aspirator, towels, HBB student workbook and other essentials;
La Crosse East awaits your invitation to speak and encourage your support for “Helping Babies Breathe.”

Submitted by Tom Mickelson, Member
Rotary Club of La Crosse East