This is an important focus of our work.  There is probably no area of Akha life that is so overlooked by outsiders as the death rate of their children, particularly babies.

 

I have seen it first hand. It is not pretty, and it is not nice to have to bury people's babies.

The cause of infant death is no mystery.  Infant death is most common in villages stressed by forced relocation and resultant poor nutrition or rapid change in quality or quantity of diet.

 

Keeping sick babies from dying is very difficult.  Few doctors are good at this, nor do they seem to pay much attention to Akha babies even if they are brought to the clinic.

 

They prescribe medicine which in most cases the child will immediately vomit up.

 

The mother herself usually does not have sufficient nutrition and often there is incredible financial stress on the household.

 

Ongoing and longterm support and encouragement of mothers, plus supplying vitamins, is helpful.

 

However, prevention of infant death still is not getting the amount of resources that are needed to prevent this from being a common occurance.

 

We have great suspicion about the tetanus toxoid vaccine. This vaccine is given to the Akha women during pregnancy. It is very easy to see how control and thus leadership is taken away from the Akha by the Thai medical personnel. The Akha women are told they will not get an ID card for their baby if they don't submit to the tetanus toxoid vaccine during pregnancy.  We have documented shock to the unborn baby as well as spontaneous abortion. In addition, we have documented that the numerous tetanus toxoid vaccines are given during EACH pregnancy.

See the video in the downloads section.

 

Numerous children are born with physical defects in the Akha communities close to or in the low lands where Akha work in fields contaminated by pesticides or worse yet work with pesticide and herbicide chemicals themselves. Lacking good economic opportunities and worker protection, the Akha are often contaminated by these chemicals. There is a suspected connection between contamination with these chemicals and death or hazard to the unborn, including birth defects. Numerous babies have been noteably born with an anus, requiring long term special care.

 

 

Please contact us at akhalife at gmail.com if you would like to get directly involved regarding this health care effort.