Rosie Scribble

Things this post should say

This post should probably say something about my wonderful evening at the Mother and Baby Awards last night and mention how beneficial it is, for me, to be out socialising in the real world and feeling as if I am ‘living a little’.

This post should probably thank the Fleishman team for sending me to the event as a Pampers/UNICEF blogger.

This post should probably acknowledge the stark contrast between a lavish award ceremony in London and the daily struggles of life in Cameroon, which did not go unacknowledged, and state that the opportunity to attend such an event and stay in an expensive Hyde Park hotel did not go unappreciated.

This post must mention my renewed motivation to promote the work of UNICEF on this blog. A relationship has been developed there and it’s something I am committed to pursuing. So watch this space …

This post simply has to mention Nicky – the midwife who travelled to Africa with me -  and who I met again at the awards last night. Her commitment to helping mothers and babies in the developing world is exceptional and has motivated to do what I can in my own small way.

This post would also like to thank @Cafebebe for her company and my blog sister @Mummytips whose bone-crushing hug was the highlight of my evening.

This post will also mention Jason Manford who provided the entertainment for the evening and was hilarious.

This post would have included a photo of me posing this morning at Kings Cross Station with Children in Need’s Pudsey Bear, if I had not been quite so red-eyed and half a sleep, and if one late night was not such a rarity that exhaustion has left me feeling slightly disoriented.

What is clear, if nothing else, is that I need to get out more often.

Review: Bush Tales children's books

IJ was a little unsure of the Bush Tales children’s book and CD/DVD pack when it arrived, so much so that they were left untouched for over a week. I suspect they simply seemed too different from the highly animated television programmes and 3D films she is used to watching, and she has never been too keen on animal stories, so perhaps the characters on the cover put her off.

I thought the books looked great and I was interested to find out about stories inspired by Africa storytellers having recently travelled there. Concerned that somehow I needed to write a review of Bush Tales, but with IJ still reluctant to look at the books, I put on the DVD. She was instantly hooked.

Bush Tales is a collection of 12 stories written by Matthew R Jameson and brought to life by a series of beautifully illustrated and very colourful books. They include characters with names like Pula the short giraffe, Bont the Baboon and Hustler the Meerkat. A CD and DVD accompany the books and include leading West End stars plus members of the London Symphony and BBC Symphony Orchestras.

I liked the fact that the stories and a little different from the usual princess stories and Horrid Henry books IJ usually reads. I also liked the variety of the musical pieces on both the CD and DVD with each character adopting its own musical style from classical to big band and from jazz to country.

The DVD takes you through the pages of the book with the words put to song. We had two of the books and IJ was keen to see her books on the screen but refused to skip through the others, choosing instead to sit and watch them all. She even danced to some of the music. After her initial hesitations the series proved to be a hit.

I particularly liked the CD and thought the music, performed by leading West End stars including Paul Medford, George Asprey and Dianne Pilkington, was outstanding. Rather than transporting me back to Africa, it took me to the bright lights of the West End stage. If Bush Tales ever took to the West End, I would certainly buy a ticket.

Bush Tales is available from selected branches of Waterstones nationwide, boutique toy and book stores and online at www.bushtales.com or via retailers including Amazon and iTunes priced from £4.99 a book, £9.99 for CDs and DVDs and £7.99 for an iPad app. A luxury gift set is available including all 12 books, DVD and a CD and costs from £49.99. For every book, CD and DVD sold a donation of 20p is made to the Born Free Foundation, with a donation of £2 for every box set sold.

The Gallery: African Lizard

This week's Gallery theme is: favourite photo. Below is one of mine.

It was taken in Cameroon, seconds after I announced to Rebecca -- the professional photographer who accompanied us on our trip -- that there was no way my camera was good enough to capture the shot.

Seconds later the lizard moved and I jumped out of my skin, squealing in a slightly pathetic fashion. I'd never seen anything like it before. I'm not even sure it's a lizard.

Rebecca's cameras were slightly better than mine and had travelled a great deal further.

And I'd really quite like one.

Vaccinations, delivery suites and thoughts of home

On the last full day of our field trip to Cameroon, we attended a vaccination session at the health centre in Bertoua and visited the regional hospital where I really hoped the delivery suites would be better than those we had seen so far.

The vaccination session confirmed what I had already learnt during my week in Africa: the message about tetanus was getting through and women were turning up to be vaccinated even if that meant travelling long distances.

Yet the birthing conditions at the hospital, considering they were supposed to be the best in the area, were alarming. Although the gynaecologist’s consulting room looked highly clinical and hygienic, the delivery suites (one of which could accommodate three women giving birth at the same time) were hot, unhygienic and contained metal beds which looked horrific. As I left one room I noticed a dirty red rag lying on the floor. Again, there were no resuscitation facilities, no oxygen, not even a bag and mask for those babies needing extra help.

It seemed then running water and a metal bed was the best on offer in Cameroon when it came to giving birth. A delivery at the regional hospital cost US$12. A full ante-natal check and basic health screening cost US$50 which is beyond what the majority of women can afford. Living in conditions of extreme poverty, it is not surprising that the majority of women have to give birth at home with no professional support in conditions which are unhygienic at best and life-threatening at worse.

Having spent time with new mothers, expectant women, traditional birth attendants, social mobilisers, doctors and a range of health professionals, and having witnessed the conditions in which the majority of families live and the conditions in which women give birth, it is clear that to be vaccinated against tetanus is an absolute necessity.

As we returned to the relative luxury of our hotel in Yaoundé, my thoughts returned to home, to my child and my life, a world away from this one. The field trip had been an amazing experience -- emotional, educational, shocking, sobering, thought-provoking, life-changing. Within 24 hours I would be back in the familiar surroundings of home, yet knowing I would never forget these communities.

Today, in mid-October, I think of them often.

I always will.

The Pampers and UNICEF campaign runs from October to December. For every Pampers product purchased with the “1 pack = 1 life-saving vaccine” logo, Pampers will donate the cost of one vaccine to UNICEF.  Additionally, by visiting the Pampers Village website and clicking on the Big Kiss button, a ‘virtual kiss’ will be sent to Pampers and UNICEF. For every ‘virtual kiss’ sent, Pampers will make an additional donation to UNICEF. Helping to eliminate a disease as deadly as tetanus really is as simple as that.

Tetanus and the work that still needs to be done

I travelled to Cameroon with the Pampers and UNICEF team to see the success of their partnership in helping to eliminate maternal and newborn tetanus and to see for myself the work that still needs to be done. During our time in Ngamboula we met two women and their families who had not been vaccinated against tetanus because they believed the injections would harm them in some way. As a result, they all remained at risk of contracting the disease.

Between them Madame Pelagie and Madame Yvonne had had 17 pregnancies. Fourteen of their children were still alive. Madame Pelagie, the younger of the two women, was holding her seven month-old twins when we spoke to her outside her mud hut. She did not know her age but her husband said he was 23. She looked little older. Her eldest child was ten years old. It seems that when girls start having their periods here, they start having children. Many of the pregnant women we had seen in the village looked very young.

 

Madame Pelagie had received no vaccinations and had never visited a hospital, nor had any of her seven children. As she had her first five children at home alone in unhygienic surroundings, the risk of them contracting tetanus would have been very high. She explained that once her babies were born she would leave them on the floor and go and get help from a relative who would cut the umbilical cord with bamboo. She received some help from the village’s traditional birth attendant for the birth of her twins but still went through a high-risk birth with no professional support on hand.

Tetanus is caused by bacteria that lives in dead and decaying matter in soil, animal dung and faeces and develops when bacteria contaminates an open wound. The bacteria works as a nerve toxin (poison), affecting the central nervous system and causing painful and uncontrollable muscle spasms. Anyone can contract maternal and newborn tetanus if they are not vaccinated; however, it is usually women and newborns living in remote areas with no access to antenatal care or immunisation that become affected.

All Madame Pelagie’s children will have been put at risk of contracting the disease and remain at risk while they remain unvaccinated. She explained to us that she was scared of needles and worried that the needle would break and end up in the body.

Madame Yvonne, aged 42, was convinced that vaccinations would make her children ill. Her children were aged between seven weeks and 22 years. None of them had been vaccinated and, in fact, she had little understanding of what tetanus was or why vaccination was important. While her husband had some understanding, he was also unaware of the risks of remaining unvaccinated.

Again, Madame Yvonne had had all her babies at home alone, apart from the time she had given birth in the bush. She had been working on a nearby farm when her contractions started and there was no time to find shelter. The risk of herself or her newborn baby contracting tetanus would have been extremely high. One of her children had received a vaccination in the past but Madame Yvonne explained that it had given him a fever for two days so she had decided against any further vaccines for any of her children.

A crucial part of the MNT elimination campaign in Cameroon involves educating women, like Madame Pelagie and Madame Yvonne, about tetanus, the importance of being vaccinated and dispelling any inaccurate beliefs they may have. It was obvious from our visit that further work still needs to be done in this area. Fathers, too, needed to appreciate the importance of their wives and children being vaccinated.

As I watched many children during my time in Cameroon playing happily in the soil, it was worrying to know that there will be many who remain at risk from the bacteria that lives there. A simple course of vaccines could eliminate that risk and give them a much brighter future.

Maternal and newborn tetanus (MNT) still threatens the lives of 170 million women and their newborn babies in 40 countries around the world. In 2010 (according to WHO), it has been calculated that approximately 59,000 newborns die annually from newborn tetanus, and thousands of women from maternal tetanus. Even though MNT is easily preventable with a simple vaccine, one baby till dies needlessly of newborn tetanus every nine minutes.

Together we can change that.

Pampers and UNICEF