THE Zonta Club of Bendigo will again assemble live-saving birthing packs for impoverished women and their children.
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The club will host two assembly days in the coming weeks to prepare a simple kit with supplies for a straight-forward and clean birth.
For every 11 kits we produce, a life is saved.
- Rosalie Lake
Every 90 seconds a woman dies from birth complications and these kits will work toward reducing this statistic.
Bendigo Zonta president Rosalie Lake said the kits were vital to the mothers experiencing a safe and clean birth.
Each kit costs $3 to make.
"Each birthing kit contains just six basic items - a plastic sheet, soap, two gloves, a sterile scalpel blade, three cords and five gauze squares," she said.
"They contribute to saving women's lives in developing nations as diverse as Papua New Guinea and Afghanistan.
"Bendigo Zonta was one of the first to begin production of the birthing kits.
"Now distributed internationally by AusAID, they aim to prevent some of the estimated 385,000 global deaths in childbirth annually.
"More than one million kits have been distributed worldwide.
"I invite interested people to come along and help us assemble as many kits as we can next Saturday."
Former midwife and Zonta birthing kits co-ordinator Irene McKinna said one in seven women died during childbirth in remote Papua New Guinea.
"One non-government organisation there reported 'only one woman died and no babies' after it received its first allocation of 2359 kits," she said.
"Normally for this number of births, the death rate could have been well over 40 women and possibly as high as 100, plus hundreds of babies.
"For every 11 kits we produce, a life is saved.
"Often, if the mum survives, the baby will survive too."
Twelve years ago the Zonta Club of Bendigo was one of the first Zonta groups in Australia to begin producing and distributing the birthing kits.
What started with the simple goal of creating a clean environment for mothers in developing countries to give birth has touched the lives of one million women.
Zonta are looking for volunteers to assist with the packing of the kits.
The kits will be assembled on Saturday from 9.30am at St Luke's Anglican, Church hall, in White Hills.
For more information, contact Irene McKinna on 5441 5445.
