September 2nd, 2010 :: Research efforts related to Mali's matrones
I wanted to take a few moments and describe what research was going on related to the most recent AMTSL training. My day job is as a nurse-midwife, nurse educator, and researcher at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. My research has, to date, been focused on rural midwives in Mali. This is how Mali Midwives got its start - I saw an obvious need to support this group and Mali Midwives provided a vehicle to do that. In addition to my efforts with Mali Midwives, I have continued to engage in research with the midwives. Don't worry - if you gave money to Mali Midwives you did not pay for my research. All the contributions to Mali Midwives went directly to training costs! But, what I did do is use the Mali Midwives event as an opportunity to gather more informaiton about these women. They are so critical to maternal health in Mali yet no one can really describe who they are, how, where, and when they were trained, etc. So, part of my objective for this most recent trip was to conduct some surveys with the midwives in an effort to describe this critical group of providers. I had research clearance from both my university and the National Institute for Public Health Research in Mali to do this work.
With more information about the midwives, we can help tell their story and seek additional funding and support. We can better understand how to support, train, and retain them. I am still working through the surveys we just collected. I'll be sharing their demographic, work environment, and other details on this site and in other venues. Stay tuned if this interest you and please feel free to contact me if you have questions. I've got some good photos coming...but they are in a DHL package somewhere between here and Baltimore! Stay tuned. For now, I'll just throw up a photo of me with our fabulous Malian research assistant, Djeneba Sanogo.
