Maternal Child Healthcare Clinic
This is the monitoring of the well-being of both the mother and child, physical and mental status in consideration of the economic status and social beliefs to promote good health.
Goals
- Promote good health
- Primary prevention of diseases
- Early detection of the any complications and appropriate solutions initiated.
Interventions
- Antenatal care
- Post-natal care
- Immunization
- Hepatitis B vaccination
- Cervical cancer screening
- Nutritional counselling and education
- Growth and milestone development
- Prevention of mother to child transmission of infection
- Covid -19 vaccination and education
- ARV adherence
ANC Services
The hospital in partnership with the government of Kenya through a programme called “Linda Mama” has helped in reducing home deliveries and mortality rate of both mothers and children. The Linda Mama programme has helped in increasing skilled deliveries in our facility. The hospital also offers free laboratory services for early detection of infection and early interventions.
The laboratory services offered are as follows:
- Glucose level to rule out gestational diabetes
- Hepatitis B vaccination
- VDRL- for syphilis infection and other viral infections
- Blood level for early detection of anaemia in pregnancy
- Urine test to check on infections on urinal tract danger during pregnancy
The hospital also offers free-treated mosquito nets to all mothers to help in the prevention of malaria. Free supplementation is offered to mothers such as folic acid, ferrous sulphate and sulfadoxine pyrimethantine which helps in preventing malaria infection. We educate all pregnant mothers on danger signs during pregnancy, nutrition, exercise and preparedness for labour and delivery. All these are done through short text messages sent to their phones and face-to-face communication during clinic visits. We book high-risk pregnant mothers who are closely monitored after every 2 weeks, non-high-risk mothers are seen every month at the facility. We also link with community health promoters to do home visits and trace the defaulting pregnant mothers back to the facility. The hospital also does obstetric ultrasound services to all at an affordable cost to ensure continuity of care.
Post-natal care
There are components of ANC that we usually go through with the family after delivery, these include:
- Infant feeding plan, exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months old
- Reproductive life plan
- Mental health assessment
- Chronic health conditions and management post-delivery
- Weaning of the baby – introduction of feeds at 6 months
- Socio-economic changes during post-delivery
- Weight and growth monitoring of the newborn
- Post-natal care to the baby and the mother
All these components are shared with the mothers and caregivers after delivery.
PMTCT (Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of infection)
Elimination of mother-to-child transmission of infections i.e. HIV/AIDS from mother to child. In our facility, the transmission rate to children has dropped significantly due to the measures that we have adopted including comprehensive follow-up of antenatal and postnatal mothers who are on care to ensure good adherence to drugs that would result in low viral load hence reducing the transmission rates.
All HIV-positive mothers get educated on issuing prophylaxis to their infants appropriately and the process is closely monitored through home visits to ensure good results are achieved. We also collect blood samples for the exposed infants for early detection of infection and early initiation of ARVs to reduce transmission to others. This is done to all infants at 6 months and 1-year post deliveries where mothers are HIV positive.
In PMTCT, we ensure the primary prevention of new HIV infections through guidance and counselling to all clients. Viral load suppression to all HIV-positive mothers through adherence sessions done in a friendly environment. Also, take blood samples after 6 months to ensure all mothers are virally suppressed. We also provide guidance to prevent unintended pregnancies, especially to school-going teenagers. We offer treatment to infected mothers and children after an appropriate regimen and with care and love to prolong the life span of all. HIV-negative mothers are also closely monitored through testing at the first visit, 3rd trimester, labour and delivery, 6 weeks post-natal, 6 months and one year to detect infection early and initiate treatment.
Immunization
We offer all routine immunization antigens for children under 5 years of age. We have also introduced Hepatitis B vaccination to all eligible clients. Malaria vaccine has improved and the coverage has increased in terms of 4th dose that is administered at 2 years of age. COVID-19 vaccine, currently we have 2 types that are consistent in our facility, Pfizer and Johnson.
The list of all available vaccines is as follows:
- Polio vaccine given at birth, 6 weeks, 10 weeks and 14 weeks
- Oral BCG vaccine a single dose given at birth
- Pentavalent vaccine injectable at 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 14 weeks
- Malaria vaccine injectable at 6 months, 7 months, 9 months and 24 months
- Measles rubella vaccine is given at 6 months for HIV-exposed infants, then at 9 months and last at 18 months
- HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccine given to prevent cervical cancer to all girls from ages 10- 14 years.
HIV test
HIV testing and counselling is done to all eligible i.e. pregnant mothers on the first visit and testing after every trimester, labour and delivery, six weeks postnatal, then 6 months until the cessation of breastfeeding to control the spread of infection from mother to the child.
Cervical cancer screening
All women from ages of 24 years and above get screening services free of charge for cervical cancer. We also collect samples for pap smear test. HPV vaccine is also available for all girls of 10-15 years of age that is usually done at school to ensure girls are vaccinated against cervical cancer.
