Every Mother Counts is a non-profit dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother, everywhere. The organization has a current portfolio of 11 grants that improve access to essential maternity care in 7 countries: Guatemala, Bangladesh, Haiti, India, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United States.  

One of Every Mother Counts grantee partners in Guatemala is, the Association of Midwives of the Mam Speaking Area (ACAM) Midwifery and Birth Center. ACAM is a group of 40 Mayan midwives that came together in 2003 to address issues specific to Indigenous midwives and the communities they serve. Since then, ACAM has built a Midwifery and Birth Center in Concepción Chiquirichapa. The center is staffed by Mayan midwives and a part time Mam-speaking MD. Prenatal, birth, postpartum, family planning, and primary care services are provided for token fees which are often waived entirely. The midwives presently bring in about one third of their operating costs with fees for service and the remainder comes from donations.  

We recently toured ACAMs facitilies and saw first hand the need for modernized technology to track the maternal and fetal health of their patients. One device they had that seemed crucial to update was the fetal doptone, which is used to measure the heartbeat of the fetus during prenatal checkups. Our goal for this project is to raise enough money for at least two fetal doptones (each costing around $500), estimating our final sum at around $1000. Thank you in advance for your support.