Swiss donation to increase survival odds for preterm babies

The Swiss National Committee for UNICEF will grant $2m to endow maternity wards in Moldova with modern neonatal intensive care units, as well as for projects designed to improve education in the country’s schools, Info-Prim Neo reports. The newborn intensive care units and the equipment destined for maternity hospitals, valued at 500,000 lei, are meant to increase the survival chances for the prematurely born or low-weight babies. Petru Stratulat, a senior executive officer of the Institute for Mother & Child Protection Research, said that Moldova appealed for help to international organizations after the Moldovan authorities lowered, starting 1 January 2008, the lower birth weight limit for babies to be considered live-born, in a move to meet WHO standards. “While until recently live-born were considered the babies that exceeded a threshold of 1,000 grams, starting this year all the children with a birth weight exceeding 500 grams are officially registered. This new indicator will certainly have a negative impact on the rate of infantile deaths, which has had a decreasing trend – from 27.1 per 1,000 newborns in 2000 to 16.0 in 2006 and 11.3 in 2007”, said Dr. Stratulat. In his view, the increase in the infantile death rate is due to the poor conditions for neonatal care, the shortage of baby incubators which are able to maintain an intra-uterine temperature, provide optimal amounts of humidity and oxygen, and measure the incubated baby while inside. According to statistics, 5.5 percent of the newborns are delivered prematurely. Over 20 percent have a weight of 1.5 kg or lower at birth. In developed countries, the survival chances of the children with a birth weight ranging from 500 grams to 1 kg are 50 to 85 percent. Moldova’s medical establishments have at present 22 working incubators, which obviously is more than insufficient. The purchase of 30 new neonatal intensive care units will improve the situation very much, believes Dr. Stratulat. The price of an incubator ranges from $8,000 to $15,000. Another part of the Swiss Committee’s donation, estimated at $1.5m, will be used to put the model of “child-friendly schools” into practice in Moldova. “This is a UNICEF concept working in different parts of the world to increase access of children to education and improve its quality. A child-friendly school ensures every child an environment that is physically safe, emotionally secure and psychologically enabling. It promotes gender equality and encourages families and communities to collaborate and participate”, the Committee’s president Wolfang Wornhard said. According to the Moldovan Statistics Bureau, the rate of school enrolment has decreased, reaching 87.8% for primary education and 86.8% for secondary education in 2005. The access of Moldovan children to education is generally unequal, considers Wolfang Wornhard. Children from poor families get a late start in education, because, as a rule, they don’t go to kindergarten. Because of the low incomes, the rural population has a narrower access to education than the urbanites. This is also the case of the rural middle class (32 percent in villages compared with 38 percent in towns). The Swiss National Committee for UNICEF contributes to financing UNICEF programs in developing countries like Moldova. The activities of the Swiss committee are funded exclusively by private donations and the sale of UNICEF cards and gifts. In 2006, the Swiss committee contributed nearly CHF 18 million to UNICEF programs.