This one simple tool saved Mamadou
Aminata was exhausted. She had been in labour for a full day and didn’t have the strength to continue pushing. She had previously given birth to a stillborn baby at just 18-years-old.
“I thought that I was going to die. I was so tired that I can’t remember anything anyone told me,” Aminata says.
Luckily for Aminata, her doctor, Dr Soumaila Traoré, was trained by UNICEF to use a suction device applied to the baby’s head in childbirth in order to deliver the newborn safely.
“The ventouse is the most useful tool because it allows us to save children,” Dr Traoré says.
“When I see a mother with her baby and it’s because of a UNICEF intervention, it’s such a good feeling – very often, we would have lost the baby.”
Aminata was very relieved when she finally saw her baby boy, Mamadou.
“They put him on my chest and wiped him with a linen cloth,” she says. “When they put him there, I felt so happy that I finally got to see him.”
Mamadou was born healthy thanks to the help of UNICEF-trained doctor, Soumaila Traore. © UNICEF//Njiokiktjien
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