Bangladesh 'Golden Girls' Guard Maternal Safety

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Bangladesh 'Golden Girls' Guard Maternal Safety


In Bangladesh only 27 percent of pregnant women have access to highly trained birth attendants. These teen volunteers are trained to meet pregnant women in their communities and connect them to the most basic medical resources and information.



UNAIDS Bangladesh Golden GirlsAkhtar (left) and Khatun are impacting lives of Bangladeshi womenCredit: Swapna Majumdar


Tamana Khatun is not a doctor. Nor is she a community leader in her remote and un-electrified Chanka village in Satkhira district of Bangladesh. But when a woman in the village went into labor in the middle of the night her panicked family turned to 14-year-old Khatun, a grade 10 student who lived nearby and was able to arrange for the community's skilled birth attendant to come in time, saving the lives of the mother and newborn.

Khatun's ability as a trained health volunteer helped out in many ways. The family did not have the birth attendant's number and the woman probably would have delivered without any assistance at home, like an estimated 73 percent of births in Bangladesh. But because of Khatun's rapport with the birth attendant it was easy for her call her in the night. And because she works in tandem with the attendant, she could help ensure that the new mother was given tablets to prevent postpartum hemorrhage, a major killer that stalks childbirth.

In nearby Sushilgati village, 17-year-old Irani Akhtar, a college student, is also making the difference between life and death. Akhtar, whose elder sister died young during childbirth, makes homes visits to discuss maternal health when she's not in school. "It was lack of awareness about pregnancy-related dangers that led to death of my sister," said Akhtar in an interview on the sidelines of a recent U.N.'s international Asia Pacific conference held here focused on gender equality and women's empowerment. "I want to ensure no other family faces the same tragedy."
Conference Spotlight

The UNAIDS office in Bangladesh invited Akhtar and Khatun to the conference to share their experiences as participants in an initiative of the Community Health Foundation, a nonprofit based in Dhaka, to educate girls in grades 9 to 12 about pregnancy and childbirth and then link them to pregnant women in their community through government female health workers. Known as the Golden Girl Project, its 275 volunteers help increase awareness among pregnant women and facilitate access to skilled birth attendants, bringing down maternal mortality risks.

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In addition to safe motherhood Khatun and Akhtar also campaign vociferously to end early marriage.

http://womensenews.org/story/reproductive-health/150117/bangladesh-golden-girls-guard-maternal-safety