Little Hearts Fund Inc

HELPING BABIES SURVIVE AND THRIVE



PROBLEM #1: 3,000,000+ newborn babies die every year from preventable causes.

Due to the extremely high rate of malnutrition among pregnant women in Southeast Asia, unborn babies lack the vital nutrients they need to develop a strong little body. This causes the child to start life greatly disadvantaged and with a low immune system. In a weak and vulnerable state, children are powerless to fight off simple health issues such as infections, diarrhea or even just a minor injury. It’s so sad to know that the causes of death among newborn babies are the same causes that can be easily treated for less than what we spend on lunch.



PROBLEM #2: In poverty, even the most basic medicine is unaffordable

Although most illnesses are treatable, in many cases they become fatal for children in poverty as their parents cannot afford the simplest treatments, even though their baby’s life depends on it. When living in poor/unsanitary conditions, even a small scratch can take the life of a newborn child as it’s prone to infection. In this event, a basic remedy such as a simple band-aid or ointment is unaffordable, out of reach for a family living in abject poverty. Left untreated, newborn babies with simple health-issues develop into life-threatening illnesses.

A staggering number of newborn deaths in Southeast Asia occur due to easily treatable causes, such as:
• Diarrhea
• Acute malnutrition
• Respiratory infections

If funds are available to treat these poor babies without delay, thousands of unnecessary newborn deaths can be avoided every single day.



OUR SOLUTION: We provide the essential needs of newborn babies in poverty.

In the LHF Program #1 ‘Search and Rescue’ Little Hearts Fund conduct an extensive search-campaign to find pregnant women in poverty so they can give them free Healthcare, groceries and other necessities. During that campaign LHF search for babies with immediate and life-threatening health concerns. Upon finding such babies in need LHF provide their essential needs including supplementation, medicine and often nutrient-enriched baby-milk to compensate for malnourished mothers failing to produce breast-milk.

Providing essential needs for newborn babies is one of the quickest and easiest ways to stop child-deaths, due to the fact that approximately 75% of all under-5 deaths occur within the first year of life.

This life-saving program is especially urgent as Southeast Asia experiences more neonatal deaths than all of the Americas, Europe, and Western Pacific combined. Newborn babies and young children are the most precious and innocent people on our planet, absolutely deserving of our care.


PLEASE DONATE ESSENTIAL NEEDS FOR NEWBORN BABIES IN POVERTY

PREVENTING THE DEATHS OF MOTHER AND CHILD DURING DELIVERY



PROBLEM #1: A Midwife or Doctor is unaffordable for pregnant women/girls in poverty.

Healthcare coverage is the key to making services such as medicines, antenatal care and postnatal care affordable for women and girls in poverty. However, it does not cover all costs involved. Healthcare in Southeast Asia does not cover 100% of expenses, making midwives and Doctors unattainable for women without an income or savings. Due to this fact, all forms of assisted birthing procedures from a midwife through to a medical intervention (eg. C-section) are all luxuries that poor women have no hope of receiving.



PROBLEM #2: When a Doctor is unreachable during a complicated delivery, fatalities occur.

Sadly –for the above reasons- another new mom and newborn baby die every few seconds, every day. When a complicated delivery arises, lack of access to a midwife and Doctor often results in death for the mother and her baby. Even for successful natural deliveries by malnourished women, dangers such as critical weakness or infections are often life-threatening. In these situations and more, urgent medical intervention is critical to their survival.



OUR SOLUTION: We provide delivery assistance to women and girls giving birth in poverty.

Thanks to the kindness of generous donors, LHF use donations to supply midwives and Doctors to those most at risk of dying without them, effectively funding the deliveries for helpless women and girls in poverty. For new mothers in critical condition, intensive maternal care is also funded with donations.* Ultimately this program can stop the preventable deaths for every pregnant woman and girl we find in poverty, bringing us ever-closer to our goal of significantly reducing the number of preventable pregnancy-related deaths in poverty.
Note: Incubation/Intensive care for newborn babies is funded via LHF Program #5 ‘Child Rescue Missions’.

Summary: Donations to LHF go toward funding the cost of:
1) Midwife-assisted natural deliveries
2) Complicated deliveries
3) Medical Interventions
4) Intensive maternal care for new moms in critical condition

PLEASE HELP US SAVE MOTHERS AND THEIR NEWBORN BABIES DURING DELIVERY

WE PROVIDE FOOD AND MEDICINE FOR NEGLECTED PREGNANT WOMEN & GIRLS



PROBLEM #1: Millions of pregnant women and girls are suffering from malnutrition.

During pregnancy daily nutrition is absolutely essential to the healthy development of an unborn child, as the only nutrients a baby receives are those from the mother. Sadly, the majority of impoverished pregnant women suffer from malnutrition on a daily basis, eating a common meal in the slums such as scraps from nearby trash-cans.

On a good day, a poor woman in Southeast Asia gets to eat only once per day, typically a handful of stale white rice or rotten meat scraps discarded by its owner. As you can imagine, a pitiful diet such as this contains far fewer nutrients than what is required by a pregnant woman who is supposed to be nourishing the child growing in her womb.



PROBLEM #2: Malnutrition causes millions of maternal deaths every year.

A malnourished mother is exposed to high risk of maternal death due to a variety of reasons. For one, prolonged malnutrition results in the immune system falling to critically low levels, in which sickness and extreme weakness become inevitable. Strength, endurance and vitality are all needed to give a successful birth without medical intervention, especially during complicated deliveries. Unfortunately though, every day thousands of poor pregnant women are dying during delivery.



PROBLEM #3: Most malnourished women/girls lose their baby.

A pregnant woman’s body has a great demand for nutrients to nourish her unborn child, but in a severely malnourished state, the womb becomes an extremely dangerous environment for her unborn child. A lack of quality nutrients being delivered causes a series of health complications for the unborn child struggling to grow in her womb.

Poor development of an unborn child during these critical early stages makes way for serious life-threatening birth defects including chronic sickness, prematurity, low birth-weight, physical deformities, miscarriage, and stillbirth.

For babies who miraculously survive delivery in these terrible conditions, more than 44% die within the first 28 days of life.



IMPORTANT FACTOR: Giving cash directly to poor people does NOT solve the problem.

Cash cannot simply be given to poor people with instructions to shop for nutritional food. The reason? Surveys reveal that money given directly into the hands of the poor is –in most cases- not spent wisely. Having money and knowing how to spend it does not often go together. So where does it usually go?

1. The male partner - In Asia, the woman is typically in submission to the man, restricted against holding the money and deciding how it should be spent. It’s unlikely that the man in the relationship understands the importance of prioritizing funds to be spent on nutrition for his pregnant partner, or that it’s matter of life or death for her and their unborn child. It’s common in Asia for the man’s wants to be prioritized over the woman’s needs. In these cases, the money is typically spent on alcohol, cigarettes and sometimes, drugs.

2. Inability - The responsibility of shopping for healthy groceries cannot fairly be delegated to malnourished pregnant women as they often lack the energy, capacity, and transportation required to get the job done.

3. Junk food – Knowledge of nutrition is rare in developing countries, as education in poverty is low at best. With cheap fast food restaurant chains and 7/11-style shops on almost every block, the most common types of foods purchased by the lower-class are usually low-quality junk foods (burgers, hot-dogs, noodles etc) containing zero nutritional value.

4. Gambling – In Asia, poverty is exploited by Lotto-schemes. When living (or dying) in poverty, the thought of spending a dollar to win back $100 is too tempting to be ignored, especially when the advertising is convincing. It’s a common sight in Asia to see poor people gathering around Lotto booths spending everything they have, waiting for their ‘lucky numbers’ to appear on the screen.

5. Thieves - Women in poverty are typically vulnerable to theft. In environments where everyone is poor, a woman with money is seen as an easy target for theft, resulting in them losing what they had to ‘pick-pocketers’ and sometimes even family members.

After viewing the above top-5 factors, the guarantee of precise donation management does not exist, therefore handing money directly to homeless pregnant women absolutely not a viable option. In order to protect the integrity of donations, a more effective method of sustaining pregnant women’s health must be enforced.



OUR SOLUTION: We convert donations into nutritional groceries, hand-delivered!

Rather than the ‘spray-and-pray’ approach, Little Hearts Fund uses donations to purchase carefully selected food items with high nutritional value. Weekly deliveries are scheduled to ensure the items are not given in such abundance that they stand-out as a target by those living around them. This reduces their risk of theft and also minimizes their temptation to sell or barter for non-essential items.

Money donated to LHF is closely tracked to ensure it is spent on the exact purpose as intended. Our goal is to reduce pregnancy-related deaths by fighting malnutrition, and we know exactly how to do it. By providing poor pregnant women with nutritious foods we are directly attacking the root of the problem, effectively nourishing their bodies and aiding in the healthy development of unborn children.

One of the cornerstone items included in the box is RUTF (Ready-to-use Therapeutic Foods). These include therapeutic milk and nutrition bars which are high in complex-carbohydrates, proteins and nutrients designed as the ideal treatment of malnutrition. RUTF is perfect in this case as they are easy to transport, do not spoil without refrigeration and require no preparation before consuming.

Furthermore, upon finding pregnant women suffering extreme malnutrition, weakness or sickness we provide them with healthy-pregnancy Supplementation and sometimes medicine (if prescribed) to stabilize and revitalize their health as quickly as possible.

Summary: LHF prevents malnutrition in pregnant women and girls by hand-delivering:
1) Nutritional Groceries
2) RUTF (Ready-to-use Therapeutic Foods).
3) Health Supplements
4) Life-saving Medicine

PLEASE DONATE SUSTENANCE FOR STARVING PREGNANT GIRLS DYING IN POVERTY

OUR FOUNDATION PROGRAM THAT MAKES ALL OTHER PROGRAMS POSSIBLE



PROBLEM #1: Without Healthcare Coverage, none of our Programs are possible

All of the life-saving free services we provide for pregnant women in poverty are only possible if they have Healthcare coverage. Without Healthcare the cost of each service becomes out of reach for LHF and most donors. The lack of Healthcare coverage in poverty-stricken families claims the lives of millions of maternal women every year. Although being covered by Healthcare during pregnancy is vital, the sad truth is that Healthcare coverage is unaffordable for pregnant women in poverty.

W.H.O documented that thousands of pregnant women are dying every day in Southeast Asia, mainly due to lack of antenatal care during pregnancy. Additionally, thousands of stillbirths occur every day, again due to the high price of antenatal care without healthcare coverage. For the newborn babies that survive these terrible conditions, more than 44% die within the first 28 days due to being either underweight, extremely weak or born with a curable sickness that was not treated. Most of these deaths can be prevented by providing healthcare coverage for poor women during their pregnancy.



PROBLEM #2: Before we can help neglected women and girls, we need to find them!

Most women in abject poverty have no registered address, making it extremely difficult to locate and help them. It’s common to see pregnant women begging for food and coins on the street in Southeast Asia, but locating all of them is no easy task. Poor people rarely have a physical address and therefore tend to wander and sleep in a variety of areas. The homeless sleep in a wide-range of areas such as under stairways and bridges, behind buildings, along sidewalks and beside roads. Basically anywhere that gives them a hiding place from the rain or easy access to beg passing traffic.

For poverty-stricken women who do have a fixed location it's typically a make-shift hut on the side of the road, or under a tarp in a slum. Millions more live in far-away provinces, on farms, in abandoned buildings or in the mountains. Such factors and more make locating poor pregnant women very difficult.



OUR SOLUTION: We search everywhere to find and enroll poor pregnant woman in healthcare.
Fortunately, Healthcare is Southeast Asia is much simpler than in developed countries. Pregnant women can receive full Healthcare coverage for a very small price compared to that in developed countries. Once they have Healthcare coverage, all vital medical services become possible because of the kind donations from those who care.

We do not want to help just some pregnant women living in poverty. It’s our goal to give free Healthcare to every poor pregnant woman and girl so they can receive the medical attention they need for a safe pregnancy. For this reason -to significantly reduce preventable maternal deaths in Southeast Asia - we want to locate ALL pregnant women in poverty. How will we accomplish this? A comprehensive canvassing campaign is required. To locate all women in desperate need of our help, Little Hearts Fund will conduct a progressive and methodical search in every poor province in Southeast Asia. One-by-one, upon locating them we immediately enroll them in our program so they can receive free healthcare and access all of the benefits, including:

1) Antenatal care - To attain and maintain optimal health for mother and baby, Obstetrician checkups are required more frequently as the delivery date approaches.

2) Medicine - When a pregnant woman or newborn baby is extremely sick, safe medicines may be necessary for their survival.

3) Midwives - During delivery the availability of a midwife and clean birthing kit is absolutely critical. Healthcare reduces the cost, making it possible for LHF to gather enough funds to provide midwives to poverty-stricken women in labor.

4) Medical Assistance – In the event of a complicated delivery, the life of the new mother and newborn baby are both at serious risk as they often result in fatalities. Being covered by Healthcare makes it possible to receive Doctor-assisted deliveries at an affordable price.

5) Postnatal care - For pregnant women/girls who entered into labor malnourished or in a weak state (and for most malnourished women who endure complicated deliveries) skilled postpartum care is crucial to their survival. Without postpartum care, the new mother is at risk of dying shortly after giving birth.

PLEASE HELP US FUND SEARCH AND RESCUE CAMPAIGNS