Welfare Moment: Training Helps Save Neighbor’s Newborn Baby
Contributed By By Marlene Gourley, Welfare Services
A woman participates in the LDS Charities neonatal resuscitation training course for medical providers.
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“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” the voice on the phone exclaimed. Dr. Aws Hasan wondered what all this “thanking” was about until the caller explained what had happened.
On the day before, she had taken her neighbor to the hospital to deliver her baby. Things progressed quickly, and the baby was soon born. However, the doctor had not arrived in time, and the baby was not breathing. There was no one around who knew what to do—at least no one who was working there that day.
Fortunately, the neighbor of the mother did know. As a midwife, she had attended a neonatal resuscitation training course for medical providers taught by Dr. Hasan. Thanks to this specialized training, she was able to resuscitate her neighbor's baby. She was very grateful to Dr. Hasan for giving her the knowledge needed to save this baby's life. When she decided to do her neighbor a favor by taking her to the hospital, she had no idea just how big of a favor that would turn out to be.
Dr. Hasan became involved with neonatal resuscitation training when he was invited to attend a course provided by LDS Charities in Egypt. That course was taught by American doctors who are specialists for the Church. After medical providers become trained in how to resuscitate newborns, they then perpetuate this effort by teaching other professionals how to become trainers themselves. The Church's goal is to have every baby in the world delivered by someone who has been properly trained in newborn resuscitation.
Dr. Hasan took that challenge to heart when he taught his first neonatal resuscitation training course a few weeks later in his native Syria. The midwife on the phone had been in that training course.
Since then there have been many more courses taught. Dr. Hasan has been closely involved with the organization of these courses and has become a true champion for his country in saving the lives of babies.
