Esengi Maternity Center

new incubator

U.S. Taxpayers: for two small gifts of $6500 and $8500, you have contributed to better birth outcomes for mothers who live on the rural edge of Kinshasa. Those amounts, USAID small grants, bought an incubator and solar panels to assure back-up electricity for the Esengi Maternity Center in Kisenu. Our tax money should always be so well spent.

One day old and clothed in
many layers.

Every month, 200 babies are born at this center, whose name means “joy” in Lingala, the local tribal language. It is one of the few maternal and child health centers in the region. Women pay a total of about $15 for their pregnancy care and five years of well-child care. This rate is heavily subsidized by the Archdiocese of Kinshasa; no local government funding is involved.

Today I was privileged to ride along with the USAID director

and Stro for an official visit and “ribbon-cutting” (without the ribbon). We met the chief doctor, many nurses (no midwives), and church officials, and were followed around by members of the press and the embassy’s public affairs staff. More importantly, we met many mothers and babies, some only one day old. Despite the heat all of them were well wrapped in several layers of clothing and blankets. Plastic bags recycled as diaper wraps. Some babies had names, such as three-day old “Winner,” his mother’s first son. Others did not have names yet and would go home with birth certificates that said only “baby.”

Pharmacy--note old incuabtor
now storage

Proud mama

This center provides a full menu of well-child services (up to age 5) as well as maternity care. Over 150 prenatal patients were present for an educational session about mother-to-baby HIV transmission. There were about six babies who had been suffering malnutrition in a ward with their moms, most of them doing much better. A large group was attending a breastfeeding workshop, complete with cheerleading, singing dancing, and clapping nurses, and health educators. Laundry was drying everywhere—on lines, on bushes, on fences.

Women come here because their friends tell them they had a good experience. The faces of the mothers, whether shy or eager, show their great pride. Esengi is indeed a place of joy.

Maman Mapassi (mother of twins)