Background
Sierra Leone recently emerged from a 10-year old rebel war which devastated the health sector, presenting serious challenges to maternal and newborn health. Unacceptably high maternal and newborn mortality rates have led to an urgent need to adopt cost-effective methods to improve the situation. The partograph is a graphic record on paper, showing the progress of labour which helps the hospital staff to identify and manage abnormalities at an early stage. Although the partograph is internationally recognized as an inexpensive, life-saving tool the use of it has not been implemented at the Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Freetown.

About the project
This project was created to implement partograph use at Princess Christian Maternity Hospial by training the hospital staff. A large model partograph was used during the teaching sessions and photocopies of the partograph were printed and distributed for the staff to practice on during the training. After the training, the team members took turns to visit the labour ward to supervise the hospital staff as they used the partograph in their daily work. In addition to this, the team trained midwife students at the School of Midwifery (located in the same building as the hospital) and equipped them with the skills to use the partograph in their future work lives.

Results
By the end of the project, 28 midwives and 43 midwife students had been trained and the number of labours where the partograph was used increased from 3% to 86%. The partograph was included in all pregnant women’s files and all women who were eligible had their labour monitored using the partograph. After the project, the team noticed a significant decrease in the number of caesarian sections and in the number of newborn health complications.

Year: 2009