By Jena Carr
A Geelong women empowerment group is helping save the lives of mothers and babies in countries where limited or no birthing support is available.
Zonta Club of Geelong will hold its annual Birthing Kits Assembly Day on Saturday, October 5, from 9am to 1pm at the Eastern Hub Geelong.
Secretary Chris Denmead said the club and community would come together on the day to assemble seven objects in a bag to send to help women during pregnancy and childbirth.
“These birthing kits are giving women a clean environment to birth their babies, and that makes a huge difference,” she said.
“There’s a metre square sheet of biodegradable black plastic, five squares of gauze, a sterile scalpel, a little pack of soap, some cord cut into lengths to tie umbilical cords, and a pair of rubber gloves.
“They go into a small zip lock bag and by the end of the day we’ll hopefully have 1000 of those little bags made, boxed up and ready to go… Then they are distributed to third world countries.”
Ms Denmead said Zonta International District 23 adopted the Zonta Birthing Kit project in 2023, which the Zonta Club of Adelaide Hills proposed.
Thirty-three women die of complications related to pregnancy and childbirth every hour, and 385,000 women die annually in childbirth, according to Zonta International District 23.
District 23 Data from the World Health Organisation found that close to 95 per cent of all maternal deaths occurred in low and lower-middle-income countries in 2020.
The Geelong Birthing Kits Assembly Day is a free event open to everyone, and Ms Denmead encouraged anyone interested to come along to help and chat.
