Postnatal Care Is One of 13 Blended Learning Modules for the Ethiopian Health Extension

Acknowledgements

Postnatal Care is one of 13 Blended Learning Modules for the Ethiopian Health Extension Programme. Together with the practical skills training sessions that accompany each of the supported self-study texts, this programme will upgrade the Health Extension Workers who complete the curriculum to Health Extension Practitioners at Level-IV of the Ethiopian Occupational Standards. The upgrading programme is sponsored by the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and the Regional Health Bureaus (RHBs). The FMOH gratefully acknowledges the receipt of funding for this programme from the Ethiopian Office of UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund), The Open University UK, the Alan and Nesta Ferguson Foundation Trust UK, and AMREF (the African Medical and Research Foundation). We are also thankful for the support of the Ethiopian Offices of UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) for freely enabling their experts to participate in the development of this Module.

This Postnatal Care Module was produced by a team of Ethiopian experts, who were trained and supported by experts in blended learning pedagogy from the HEAT (Health Education and Training) Team for Africa at The Open University UK. The contributors of original material are:

Dr Yifru Berhan, Hawassa University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences
Dr Basiro Davey, HEAT Team, The Open University UK
Dr Nebreed Fesseha, WHO Ethiopia
Dr Mulualem Gessese, Yekatit 12 Hospital, Addis Ababa
Dr Assaye Kassie, UNICEF Ethiopia.

The Academic Editors of Postnatal Care are Dr Basiro Davey, Deputy Director (Ethiopia), HEAT Team, and Peggotty Graham, both at The Open University UK. The illustrations in colour were drawn by Dr Radmilla Mileusnic at The Open University.

The other members of the HEAT Team are:

Lesley-Anne Long, HEAT Programme Director
Alison Robinson, HEAT Programme Coordinator
Dawn Partner, HEAT Senior Production Assistant
Jessica Aumann, HEAT Programme Assistant
Ali Wyllie, HEAT Lead eLearning Advisor.

We acknowledge the vital contributions of the Programme Coordinators within Ethiopia:

Ato Mohammed Hussein Abeseko, UNICEF Ethiopia and the Federal Ministry of Health
Ato Tedla Mulatu, AMREF Ethiopia.

The cover design for Postnatal Care is by Chris Hough, Learning and Teaching Solutions, The Open University UK. The cover photographs are reproduced with the permission of AMREF and Sven Torffin (large circle), who photographed Almaz, a Health Extension Worker monitoring a three-day-old baby in Doiso village, Malle woreda, South Omo zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia; and Indrias Getachew from UNICEF Ethiopia (small circle), who photographed the community health worker counselling the mother at home.

We particularly wish to acknowledge our use in this Module of adapted extracts and illustrations from Safe and Clean Birth and Newborn Care: A Reference for Health Extension Workers in Ethiopia (2008), which was based on A Book for Midwives: Care for Pregnancy, Birth and Women’s Health by Susan Klein, Suellen Miller and Fiona Thompson (2004), published by the Hesperian Foundation, Berkeley, California, USA. The Book for Midwives was created with the collaboration of hundreds of advisors, reviewers, writers, artists and others, whose expertise is gratefully acknowledged. It is through the generous permission and encouragement of the Hesperian Foundation for others to copy, reproduce, or adapt the original book, including its illustrations, to meet local needs — provided that reproductions are provided free or at cost and not for profit — that the production of parts of this Postnatal Care Module was made possible.

Safe and Clean Birth and Newborn Care was adapted from the original book by the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) Safe Motherhood Technical Working Group, with P. Annie Clark, MPH, CNM, Midwifery Advisor, ACCESS Program/American College of Nurse Midwives, with the generous support of the US Agency for International Development under the terms of the ACCESS Cooperative Agreement GHS-A-00-04-00002-00.

The opinions expressed in this Module are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of any of the donor organisations whose generous support made the production of Postnatal Care possible.