Published 4 April 2022
Over the past few weeks we have worked with partners across the UK and beyond to organize and send 39 out-of-hospital birth bags to Ukraine along with newborn clothes, thermometers, sanitary items and other equipment.
This vital equipment will be used by healthcare professionals to provide the safest care possible to mothers and babies to in these difficult circumstances.
Our urgent appeal continues – your donations will help us to send more bags and equipment to those that need it most.
The Working Committee Medical Aid Ukraine provided the following statement:
The cruel bombing of hospitals and maternity houses has left tens of thousands of Ukrainian women left with no shelter, and with no recourse but to deliver their babies in the harshest of conditions—cold, unsanitary, and unsafe. ‘They hide in the basement, they starve for several days, they are deprived of access to the most simple benefits of civilization that you have come to take for granted,’ says Andriy Vysotsky, Head of the Intensive Care Unit in Okhmadyt in Kyiv. These kits will give them and their unborn children a chance to survive this unbridled violence. Your generosity can save the lives of those newborn kids and their mothers, probably the most vulnerable group now
The bags and our partners
Our out-of-hospital birth bags have been adapted from the Baby Lifeline Community Midwives’ Bags that are currently used in Trusts across the UK. The original bags were developed by professionals in the field and are highly evaluated by midwives in the UK.
We worked with the Working Committee Medical Aid Ukraine and Anastasia Tsyben at Addenbrookes Hospital to make sure that equipment is useful and needed. The bags contain essential equipment for out-of-hospital births in neatly packed sections. Appropriate adaptations have been made and all labels and “crib cards” (which detail standard procedure for dealing with emergencies such as Newborn Life Support, Cord Prolapse, Maternal Collapse, Post-Partum Haemorrhage) have been translated into Ukrainian and Russian. These translations were expertly done in record time by Respond Crisis Translation and other volunteers, including Dr Mykhaylo Kostyuk.
To date we have been able to pay for 36 bags, and a further three have been donated by SP.
The journey to Ukrainian mums and babies
The thirty-nine bags travelled from our manufacturer in Telford, UK, to the Ukraine Lifeline warehouse in Pymoor. Transportation and delivery of the bags was organised by a network of Ukrainian volunteers. The bags, newborn clothes and mums’ items began their journey to Ukraine on 25th March 2022.
The bags arrived at the Isida clinic in western Kyiv on 4th April 2022.
The clinic, which was featured in an article by the Washington Post in March 2022, was forced to move expectant mothers, newborn babies, staff and medical equipment underground when Ukraine was invaded. Staff there have since delivered more than 22 babies in their underground bunker. Many patients are waiting to give birth in corridors, while newborn babies lie in cots in a cafeteria, and staff sleep on the clinic floor.
The pictures above and video (left) show the bags, thermometers and other equipment arriving at the Isida clinic in Kyiv on 4th April 2022.
Some of the Baby Lifeline out-of-hospital birth bags will be used by healthcare professionals at the Isida clinic, and others will travel from there to Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Irpin (Bucha and Vorzel). The bags are being distributed to those most in need, in cities that are currently difficult to access, via the Ukrainian military network.
Ongoing appeal
We are currently fundraising to send more bags and vital equipment to Ukraine. We are working with healthcare professionals currently working in Ukraine to determine what is required most, and over the past few days your donations have helped us to buy much-needed anaesthetic equipment.
Our appeal has been generously supported by patron Linda Bassett (BBC’s Call the Midwife), who has called for further donations.
Baby Lifeline Linda Bassett encourages donations to our Ukraine appeal.
We have all felt helpless watching pregnant women and their unborn and newborn babies in so much danger and such atrocious conditions. We are also hearing the pleas from desperate but dedicated health professionals trying to give care in appalling conditions. Thanks to donations raised in the last few days, our specially kitted out-of-hospital birth bags will be sent to those that need it most in Ukraine. Thank you for your amazing support, please continue to help us so that we can send more.
Judy Ledger – CEO & Founder, Baby Lifeline
We are devastated at impact the war in Ukraine is having on pregnant women and their babies and our thoughts are with them and the maternity staff providing care in the most challenging of circumstances. We are enormously grateful to Baby Lifeline for providing this initial donation of emergency maternity kits, which will provide healthcare professionals supporting pregnant women with vital equipment and supplies.
Mr Eddie Morris – President, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; Chair of Baby Lifeline’s Multi-Professional Advisory Panel
Our mission is to make sure every mother, birthing person and baby gets the best care possible throughout pregnancy and those precious weeks afterwards. There is still a lot more work to be done, and your support will help us do it.