Kiran Mubeen, an instructor at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, has been honoured with the 2017 Marie Goubran Award by the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM).
The annual prize from the ICM, which represents over 130 midwifery associations and half a million practitioners around the world, recognises midwives who have shown “visionary leadership potential” and are acting as change agents in countries with special needs.
The award will fund a research and capacity building initiative
Kiran Mubeen (far left) during a session at the conference.
led by Ms Mubeen and co-investigators into birth asphyxia, a leading cause of newborns deaths in Pakistan which causes one in five neonatal fatalities in the country, according to the World Health Organization.
The project will provide training in resuscitation techniques under the global
Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) programme to community midwives in under-resourced parts of Gujrat, a district in the northeastern province of Punjab with a high burden of birth asphyxia.
After their training, local midwives will formally pass on their HBB training to other midwives, and will work towards becoming certified master-trainers in this area.
Commenting on the goals of her research, Ms Mubeen stated that her pilot would generate the evidence required to evaluate the success of HBB in areas lacking intensive care equipment and trained staff.
“Pakistan has the third-highest number of neonatal deaths in the world. Our interventions will build critical care skills that will contribute to the aims of Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 which seeks to end preventable deaths in the neonatal period,” she added.
Bushra Rehman, an alumna now working for the IRMNCH programme, Punjab, and Dr Rafat Jan, an alumna now serving as president of the MAP, and School of Nursing faculty Marina Baig, Shahnaz Shahid, Sadia Abbas, Arusa Lakhani and Farzana Adnan are co-investigators on the project.
