Monday, May 9, 2011

Antenatal Clinic prescriptions

I have been struggling with uploading pictures to my blog (it takes a bit of time), but today I spent some time in the antenatal clinic at Mua Hospital. We saw so many pregnant women. Here are the prescriptions given out:
1) Iron+Folic acid (the little red pills). Women take 1 a day for the duration of the pregnancy to prevent anemia (a terrible problem with the amount of Malaria that is around) and promote proper development of the fetus.
2) Albendazole (one dose). Given to eliminate worms.
3) SP (3 pills taken twice during the pregnancy). This is part of the intermittent treatment of Malaria in Malawi. Attempting to reduce Malaria in pregnant women (who are very susceptible).

You can see a woman getting her blood pressure taken in the background. (They also get weighed).

At a different station the women can get 1 free mosquito net (paid for by UNICEF?) and immunizations. A different room provides confidential HIV testing and counseling (done twice during a pregnancy). A final exam room is where the abdomen is palpated and a fetoscope is used to listen to the fetal heart rate.

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