Empowering 80 people with disabilities in Iraq

Project Report | May 9, 2021
Swaddling with Care

By Emily Shindeldecker, CNP | Medical Advisor

Over the past few years with surgical teams coming, we have noticed that there is a high rate of hip dysplasia here among the people with whom we work. To start countering this, in January, we started a new project teaching Syrian refugees and Yezidis new moms and pregnant mothers a more widely recommended way of swaddling their babies. Here, the women wrap their newborns with a swaddling blanket tightly so that the babies cannot move any appendage and their hips and legs are in a straight position. They then reinforce this by firmly tying a string or cord around the baby from torso to ankle! Some then tie the baby to a board to ensure the infant cannot move in the slightest. This type of extremely tight swaddling with legs outstretched and straight is a high risk factor for developing hip dysplasia.

The goal of this new project is to teach the basic technique of swaddling and encourage mothers, mother-in-laws, grandmothers, sisters etc., in how to care for a baby and prevent hip dysplasia. We started by obtaining a list of the pregnant mothers from camp management, and then two from our local staff visited each woman to offer a free training on baby swaddling. The nurse practitioner working with Operation Mercy teaches every other week to a group of women along with two of our local staff. The training consists of explaining hip dysplasia, prevention, how to swaddle and carry in order to prevent hip dysplasia or hip dislocation and then the mothers all demonstrate swaddling on dolls or their own babies, as pictured below. On the opposite weeks, they then do home visits to each mother who attended the training for follow-up, help with reinforcement of swaddling technique and to answer any questions the mothers may have.

Even after the first training, the Operation Mercy staff walked into one of the mother's houses and found her newborn asleep in the middle of room. The first thing they noticed was that the baby was wrapped perfectly! The mother then gushed about how much she had learned at the training and how she was telling all of her friends about how to swaddle so as to prevent the risk and rate of hip dysplasia. So far there has been a 90% rate of correct swaddling when visiting the mothers, unannounced, for follow-up!

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