Every Child Alive: Inside the Fight to Help Newborns Survive

Season 1, episode 2

Around the world 7,000 newborn babies will not survive their first day. Why? In this episode we'll answer that question and bring you into UNICEF's fight for survival of the world's youngest citizens.

Producer: Victoria Ptashnick

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:00:00.99] [BABY CRYING]

[00:00:06.45] Hello, I'm David Morley, the president and CEO of UNICEF Canada, the host of our UNICEF Canada Podcast. Thank you for listening. The sound you just heard marks a new period of relief and joy for new parents. After nine months of waiting, finally, a chance to meet their healthy, happy little bundle of joy. For many families in Canada, the birth of a new baby is an incredibly exciting time filled with joy and wonder.

[00:00:37.35] There's all the fun in preparing for the baby to arrive. We plan showers, choose tiny new clothes. And for many new parents, it's a time of anticipation of wondering what their new little one will be like, but this isn't the reality for families that are expecting in other parts of the world. Those parents understand and accept the heartbreaking reality that, for them, a happy ending may not be part of their story.

[00:01:06.43] This is deeply personal for me too because our family almost didn't have a happy ending either. When my eldest son was a toddler, he and my wife and I went to Latin America to do some more work we'd worked before with projects for street children in the urban shantytowns. And we went to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, and my wife became pregnant.

[00:01:33.24] And this was wonderful, but it was a difficult pregnancy. And she began losing weight, and she was very sick. So we were accessing the Dominican health system. As foreigners who had dollars, we could get the best health care in the country. And 30 years ago, it was terrible. We could see when we would go into a clinic, when we would talk to the doctors that they didn't have the training, that they didn't have the infrastructure.

[00:02:16.10] Elizabeth was losing weight and had terrible nausea. She was prescribed a drug. We had a friend there who show-- we looked up in a drug formulary, and we realized the drug she was getting prescribed was thalidomide. And so she didn't take it, and she just got sicker. And we would call home to Canada saying to our doctor here saying, what can we do? And she was saying, you can't go on the plane.

[00:02:42.32] There's no way home. You're going to have to stay there for a while. I would call about every week. Elizabeth was getting weaker and weaker. We thought-- I thought that both she and the baby were going to die, but we did have a Canadian passport, and we had those Canadian dollars. And when after a couple of more months, she was far enough into the pregnancy where the risk was less to come home than it was to stay there, and so we were able to come home.

[00:03:20.72] And a few months later, Alex was born, our younger son. He was healthy. He was fine. He was premature. He spent a bunch of time in the neonatal intensive care unit at one of the best hospitals in the country. Because we're here and Canadians, we had that ability and had we stayed in Santo Domingo, Elizabeth would have died. Alex would have died. Alex is now the father of three children himself.

[00:03:55.83] And it's a reminder to me, a personal reminder, that the gift we have of being Canadians to be able to come here and access our health system, it's not perfect, but it's wonderful. And it's also a reminder that in the 30 years since then in Santo Domingo, their infant mortality has dropped. Health condition, the health care provision is much better in Dominican Republic than it was 30 years ago. But for me, every child alive, it touches me close to home, and I always think of Elizabeth and Alex when I think of it.

[00:04:39.60] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:04:47.13] That is a story that's personal to me, but one of our UNICEF ambassadors, Solange Tuyishime, is with us now, and she has an equally personal story to tell.

[00:04:59.91] So a young girl grew up in East Africa and spent most of my childhood in Rwanda. I had a wonderful family and siblings, and I had everything that I could wish for. And around in the 1990s, I remember hearing adults talk about how the country was starting to be unsafe. And as a child, you're protected from that, and you don't really hear what's going on in the background. And as many know, that situation is quickly changed.

[00:05:40.44] And then one morning, I remember our parents saying, it's time to go, and we're fleeing looking for a place to live. And we left, and I remember us leaving that morning. It's so vividly clear because I remember how the ground was shaking because of the mass of people that were all leaving and running in the same direction. And I remember us getting to a border trying to cross into another country and how chaotic that was.

[00:06:20.25] Of course, there would have been pregnant women as well. What was it like for them and how could they have made it through this incredible crush of people?

[00:06:32.94] It's something I think about all the time, and of course, as you grow, and you have your own family, even it amazes you and shocks you in a way. Because when I go back, I think about some family members that were pregnant. Some who even had their babies prematurely because of being in such a stressful environment that was a life and death situation.

[00:07:01.80] I can also think about my mom and my aunt who both had just had babies that were less than three months old. I remember my mom and my aunt having to share in keeping these children alive while we're trying to figure out how we all stay alive. One of the moments that I always remember is my mom, at some point, she would go work in a refugee camp that was further.

[00:07:30.48] There was a much bigger refugee camp. My mom would go work in that refugee camp taking care of children. She was a social worker by profession. So she would go there during the day, but then during the day, my aunt would have to nurse her son and my little brother. And then my mom would come the next day, and I remember her chest just being so full because then she would have to nurse the kids.

[00:07:57.72] But I remember my aunt no longer-- you could tell that she didn't even have any more energy because she was trying to keep those two babies alive while my mom is trying to do what we can so she can get a bit of money so that we can buy food. And then, she would come home, and she would take over.

[00:08:16.71] But I can't even imagine the process of that, and we live in a country where-- now that I'm in this first-world country, I don't know if anybody would have asked me to nurse their child. I would have probably been thinking twice about it, but in that moment, I think about their courage, what it required emotionally and physically for them to be in that place and find the solution to keep those children alive.

[00:08:43.23] So I can't even imagine a mother who would have had to walk 10 kilometers while they're eight months pregnant and not even having a hospital and having to deliver a child in the middle of a refugee camp. So those are things I think about all the time. And boy, oh, boy, am I ever grateful for to not have lived that situation but does it ever remind me how much work we need to do to make sure that mothers do not live in those type of circumstances.

[00:09:13.81] And then for you, what happened after you left the last refugee camp and now you're here?

[00:09:23.25] Yeah, it's one of those long journeys coming to New Brunswick, and there we were as this immigrant family that had never seen snow in the middle of November. And our home now is New Brunswick, but then life brought me to UNICEF where I would become a UNICEF Canada ambassador. Something I found-- I'm still amazed by how that worked out that one day I'm sleeping in a UNICEF tent in the middle of a refugee camp, and I'm carrying water in those UNICEF containers.

[00:09:57.39] And then years and years later, I become an ambassador for that same organization, and then I found a wonderful man. We got married, and our first miracle happens to be that we're going to have identical triplet girls. I no longer had a regular pregnancy, like you would say. First, immediately, I didn't have my family doctor anymore. I had a specialist, and I had appointments.

[00:10:32.04] At first, I started every month. And then after I think the third month, you are seeing your specialists every three weeks. And to the point where after seven months, I was hospitalized, and then we had an ultrasound every day then being able to tell how things are progressing every 24 hours. And it's in that moment that I thought to myself, what would have happened if this was Solange in 1994 who is looking for refuge in the middle of chaos with no hospital.

[00:11:08.13] I don't know if I would have survived, and I don't know if those three babies would have survived. So those were four lives that all of a sudden were at the mercy of what they were able to tell and see every 24 hours. And at some point, we took heart rates of these babies every two hours while I was in the hospital. And that was certainly a moment of gratitude, and a moment that I knew automatically that there was something that had changed in me because my reality as a child was all of a sudden coming back now as a mother.

[00:11:49.75] And I thought about all the moms and all the dads because my husband was with me all the time who would have been fighting for their children back in that refugee camp in the middle of a genocide in the middle of a war. I thought about those parents, and then it reminded me that every day as a UNICEF ambassador I had shared with people the statistics of the children that die every day from preventable causes.

[00:12:18.19] So it really-- I knew in that moment that I wanted to do something for every mother out there who was fighting for their child. But that moment would even become much stronger because after the girls were born, a few weeks later, I get this phone call, and they ask, is this the mom of the triplets? And I said, yes. And they said, we would like to let you know that baby B is not doing so well. Baby B was [? Nyla. ?]

[00:12:48.25] And as we arrived there, we would find our little girl hooked on every machine possible. And I remember praying saying, dear, Lord, please take all my strength and give them to my girl so she can survive this. And I touched her hand, and she opened her eyes. And the nurses found it amazing that it was her first time opening her eyes since she had-- since they had started giving her surgery.

[00:13:16.33] And we went through this journey of a full day where she went through multiple surgeries trying to find a solution, and seven hours of surgeries later, it was that moment where every doctor does not want to come and tell you but that needed to be done. And they said, her heart is strong, but the rest of her body is falling apart. And we had reached a moment where they would say, if she survived this surgery, here the other surgeries that she will be looking at two years old, three years old, four years old.

[00:13:48.55] And at this point, we had a long list of surgeries that she would have to endure if she would survive the next one and the next one after that. And it was one of those moments where they said, it's really up to you. We can keep trying, but I also knew that she had given it her all. For a three pound baby, to give you seven hours of surgery, and every time I touch her hand, she would look at me.

[00:14:14.44] I knew that, one, she was my daughter because she had demonstrated all her strength, and two, that she had blessed us to be with her during those moments. So it would be in those moments that I will make the most difficult decision of my life and that I hope I never have to make and that no mother should have to make in this world, and we chose to let her go.

[00:14:38.17] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:14:43.59] In that moment, I find gratitude that they would take off all that was hooked on her, and we would cover her in a beautiful blanket, and I would hold her so that she could take her last breath with me. And every few minutes, they would come and check if her heart was still beating until they would announce her time of death.

[00:15:06.78] In that moment, of course, I felt that a part of me truly died because I couldn't understand how I was going to live with this pain. But as I was crying, I-- all of a sudden, I started crying even with my own voice. And really, as much as it pains me, and it's a pain that I live with every day, and I can say the same for my husband because I saw him suffer the same pain.

[00:15:38.20] I also thought about all the parents who had lost their children during so many unfortunate circumstances, especially those that I had lived. So I was grateful to be with her and to know that she knew how much I had loved her and that everyone had fought for her. And for her to bless us with her and just her life and her existence, I walked away with immense gratitude.

[00:16:07.19] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:16:16.06] Although the world has made dramatic progress in reducing global rates of under five child mortality, newborn deaths have declined at a slower pace. These children are not dying because we don't have the tools to save them. More than 80% of all newborn deaths are caused by preventable and treatable conditions, but treatment and interventions are not reaching the mothers and children who need them most. The families who live in the most disadvantaged areas enduring the harshest conditions.

[00:16:47.68] The world can and must do better. And to help explain more about that problem and what we as Canadians can do to help, we have Meg French, the campaign lead for Every Child ALIVE. Meg, the fact that 7,000 newborns die every day, and 80% of those deaths are preventable, is really horrific. And I know that there's been some-- and under five deaths have been declining, but what has been the situation for newborn deaths as well?

[00:17:21.99] We've had a drop of over 60% of the number of children under five who've died, but that progress in that newborn age in that first month has been much slower. And so while the deaths of children are under five fall, the proportion of newborn deaths, they increasingly make up a bigger portion of those deaths. And the reason for that is that addressing the causes of newborn deaths is more complicated in some ways.

[00:17:53.96] For instance, vaccines have really helped drop the number of deaths of children under five. And that-- a vaccine program, you can go into a community, and you can vaccinate hundreds of thousands of kids all at one time, and there you go. You've just protected all of those children from that potential cause of death. Newborns, you can't do the same thing.

[00:18:21.96] You can't make sure in one day that thousands of premature babies won't be born or address asphyxia at birth in a mass kind of way. And so while we know how to address those deaths, they are preventable for the most part. And we can see that in countries around the world, like Canada, where our newborn mortality rates are much, much lower.

[00:18:51.48] We know what to do. It's not that we're lacking some major innovation. It's just it's a more complicated solution. And so what it really requires is a strong health system. You need to have trained doctors and midwives. You need to have those doctors and midwives near to where moms are living.

[00:19:11.67] And so if you live in remote areas, you've got to have a health center that you can get to easily when you go into labor or for your prenatal visits or for your postnatal care and for the baby to be looked after. You need to have the equipment in place or the antibiotics to treat infection. And so all of those things, while in many ways simple solutions, if you will, also require that we build a stronger health system.

[00:19:44.42] You've taken on the challenge to be the global lead for Every Child ALIVE, the UNICEF campaign that's trying to make a difference in this important area. Can you talk a bit about what it's doing to help?

[00:20:00.41] There's not the full awareness about what is required. We need to build that understanding, and we need to build support for the principle that every mother and every baby should have access to quality, affordable health care. And that means building that amongst politicians, amongst government officials, amongst communities, amongst donors and funders because that's what it needs. It needs a collective response of people who are committed to saving newborn lives.

[00:20:34.77] And so what the Every Child ALIVE campaign does is, first of all, work to build that awareness and then to support governments in having the platform and the support of their communities to really invest their resources in this.

[00:20:50.75] And we've even seen, just in the short 10 months since the campaign launched, we've seen some successes there. We've seen the government of Bangladesh make a commitment and put the resources in to ensure that there is a neonatal health unit in every district across the country. And we've seen increasing commitments coming from donors and individuals to really put this on the map.

[00:21:17.47] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:21:19.79] You've heard Meg and I talk about the mothers we've met who've benefited from UNICEF's life saving support in helping their babies, but we wanted you to hear directly from those mothers too. So we had our colleagues gather a few conversations with them, and here's what they had to say.

[00:21:38.45] [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[00:21:40.61] When I deliver at home, I have no support. I do not even have cotton wool, so it is a big challenge. If there is no razor blade, a woman from the community has to sharpen a stick and use that to cut the umbilical cord. These are some of the difficult things we face.

[00:22:04.96] I was brought to the hospital in a 108 ambulance. The next day, I was operated on. And post operation, everything is fine. Right after the operation, I breastfed the baby. Everything is fine at the moment. Since my arrival at the hospital, everything, including the medicines, have been provided by the hospital.

[00:22:36.64] And now another important perspective from health workers talking about our work on newborn health in different communities.

[00:22:44.92] The special newborn care units are very critical, and they help us save babies who are born before term. The preterm newborns especially, and they help in saving lives every day.

[00:22:57.03] [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[00:22:59.17] Many newborns were dying of hypothermia, of the cold. Thanks to UNICEF, we have improved all conditions in this hospital. They trained us. They started by installing plumbing, connecting us to clean running water. They gave us electric heaters to heat the birthing room.

[00:23:28.40] I am a community midwife. I am with my patients from the start of pregnancy to the delivery of the child. I do a full antenatal checkup, which includes blood pressure, temperature, pulse rate, and edema.

[00:23:52.18] When a pregnant woman visits, I welcome her. I treat her like a sister, and that makes her interested in learning about precautions during pregnancy. My friendly behavior takes care of most of her worries.

[00:24:07.73] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:24:11.89] That's the end of this podcast episode. We so hope you enjoyed listening, and we'll be back soon with another episode. If you'd like to support some of the important work UNICEF is doing, please go to our website and consider buying a newborn-based survival gift, become a monthly donor, or go to UNICEF.ca to learn more about what UNICEF Canada is doing to end newborn deaths. I'm David Morley, and thanks again for listening.

[00:24:38.71] [MUSIC PLAYING]