News

Cradle of Life, a program of Global Strategies for HIV Prevention trains birth attendants to care for HIV infected pregnant women in resource poor developing countries. Most pregnant women in resource poor areas fail to obtain HIV testing and counseling. Even if they are found to be HIV infected, nevirapine, which could prevent HIV infection of their infants, is not available.

Trained Birth Attendants are desperately needed. Kevin De Cock, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, states, "If birth attendants are given appropriate training.they could serve as effective and readily available human resources to help mobilize local communities." Read more.

Faith Alive Birth Attendant Training

54 birth attendants were trained during a four-day workshop in Jos, Nigeria at the Faith Alive Hospital and Clinics. A training faculty under the leadership of Dr. Chris Isichei and Global Strategies for HIV Prevention oversaw the workshop curriculum. Each birth attendant who qualified for a training certification received a "Doc in a Box" containing a complete kit for education and training, HIV rapid tests, and nevirapine to prevent HIV infection of infants.

Multiplying the Impact

On completion of the course, each birth attendant was asked to train 4 additional birth attendants in their area. A force of 200 trained birth attendants could see an average of 12 HIV pregnant women over a 12-month period.

Our Hope

With the ability of nevirapine to prevent up to 50% of HIV infections in infants, it is our hope that as many as 1,000 infant lives could be saved with expansion of these 4 day workshops. Our long-range goal is to use the principle of "train the trainer" to train an additional 900 birth attendants. As many as 5,000 infants could be spared HIV infection each year.

Send a Birth Attendant to a Workshop

We will need funds for each workshop to train and equip each birth attendant with a "Doc in a Box."  We will provide counseling and testing manuals, HIV Rapid test kits, nevirapine to prevent HIV infection of infants, and basic health care textbooks.

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The goal of this site is to contribute to an improvement in the scale and quality of international HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment programs for women and children by increasing access to authoritative HIV/AIDS information.The Web site is a collaboration between Global Strategies for HIV Prevention, the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and the Center for HIV Information, University of California San Francisco. Dr. Arthur J Ammann MD, President of Global Strategies for HIV Prevention serves as Pediatric Editor.