The Antara Foundation Blog

We are thrilled to announce that our organization, The Antara Foundation (TAF), has been accepted to present three posters at the International Conference on Birth Defects and Disabilities in the Developing World (ICBD) 2023, being held from March 1st-4th in Santiago, Chile. The theme of the 2023 edition of the conference is Accelerating Action for Birth Defects and Disabilities: Surveillance, Prevention, Diagnosis, Management and Family-Centered Care. At The Antara Foundation, we are currently working across 8 districts in rural Madhya Pradesh. As part of our health interventions, we work with Community Health Workers (CHWs) within the public health system to facilitate equitable, sustainable, and scalable solutions on Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health (RMNCH+A) outcomes. Our organization prioritizes timely service delivery along the continuum of care contributing towards improved prevention, management, and surveillance of birth defects. TAF is excited to

Simple advocacy, timely information sharing, and the support of a committed frontline worker was the magic formula to this success story. On a recent visit to village Chougawan in Maheshwar block in rural Khargone (MP), the ASHA Didi Farida Bi – she had a fractured leg, nevertheless she still tagged along with us—my colleagues and I visited a home where newborn baby Jay was born with a terrible anomaly. He didn’t have an anus to pass feces. Anjali, the mother, realized at the Community Health Centre (CHC) facility itself that there was a problem, since the baby was feeding well, but not passing stool. The baby’s stomach was getting considerably swollen, minute by minute. When this was pointed out to the Mandleshwar facility doctor and nurses, they sent the baby with the family to far away Indore city in MP, to the Government run Maharaja Yeshwantrao Hospital, that could deal with this kind of serious problem – a trans colostomy. The doctor at the hospital there inserted a tube in the c

  As part of The Antara Foundation’s (TAF) health interventions, we regularly assist the frontline healthcare workers during the weekly Village Health, Sanitation and Nutrition Day (VHSND). During this day, the community can freely interact with the healthcare workers and gain basic health services and information at the Anganwadi Centre (childcare centre). On VHSND, an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) administers vaccines to children under 5 years. In addition, she is supported by the ASHA and Anganwadi Worker who perform the necessary antenatal checkups for pregnant women and give counseling to pregnant women and those identified under high-risk pregnancy (HRP). Typically, a woman who comes under HRP lies at a heightened risk of having a complicated delivery – endangering her life as well as that of her child. I first met Amrita, a 20-year-old mother, at a VHSND in Kishorpura village, in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district. The village, predominantly occupied by the Adivasi community, is