Baby Wrap

Introduction: This baby blanket is made up of 16 square 7” x 7” pieces. One blanket to save one of several thousand infants in Impact India Foundation’s Community Health initiative in tribal Thane District, Maharashtra.

Proposal: To create an important focus in order to prevent the large number of infant deaths in the area.

Background: There is a traditional birth practice in tribal areas which needs to be addressed. It is the resistance to cut the umbilical cord as soon as the baby is born. The custom is to leave the cord as it is until the placenta comes out of the mother’s body and it separates naturally – this could take upto one hour. Until that happens, the baby is made to lie on the cold floor near the mother, without clothes and exposed to the vast difference of the heat inside the womb to the cold air outside. No covering is available for the poor mother to wrap here baby. The high rate of infant deaths is linked to this practice.

Aim: To involve School children by initially helping to prevent infant deaths through preparation of simple blankets to keep them warm. This can be followed by arranging for individual school children to personally deliver the blankets to the identified new-borns in the village, with suitable photographs for the school children to keep. This interaction can result in the school children’s abiding interest in the welfare of the infants, with visits to the infants from time to check on their progress and seeking support from their parents and others for material and funds for the upkeep of the infants. It will also encourage Institutional births.

Details: Material can be collected by the school children from local tailors, households, etc. and stitched into blankets. Creative expressions would be painted on the blanket with the school child’s name.