Fareeda Tinorgah Yelgie

Midwife Fareeda Tinorgah Yelgie works at Tolon Health Centre in the Northern Region of Ghana.  They are just two midwives at the clinic, and together with her colleague, Fareeda delivers around 80 babies every month.

In 2018, she took part in a pilot project launched by Maternity Foundation, where 58 midwives from the Northern Region of Ghana were trained on how to use the Safe Delivery App. In the months following the training, the midwives’ knowledge level had increased by 40 percent, and the midwives reported to feel more confident in their work.

We talked to Fareeda about a case, where the Safe Delivery App had helped her diagnose and save a baby that started to get sick immediately after delivery.

“I had delivered a baby successfully in the middle of the night, but after 30 minutes, the baby started crying. For three hours, the baby was crying non-stop and was refusing to breastfeed. The baby became very warm, the temperature was about 39.

As a midwife, it’s very difficult to transfer such cases to the hospital, especially when it’s at night – even at daytime, we don’t have cars to transfer our clients. The mother became worried, and so did her relatives. I had no one to communicate with.

I took the baby and my phone and went into the labor ward room. I opened the Safe Delivery App and I found out the reason the baby was crying could be due to low glucose levels. I was able to treat the baby accordingly, and after a while, the baby stopped crying and the temperature lowered. I observed the mother and baby until the next day. Finally, I got the baby to breastfeed, the temperature came down to normal, and both mother and baby were happy. Thanks to Safe Delivery App, I was the hero of that night.“