Chapter 5: Preventing infection
Prevent infection by keeping germs away
Here are the basic rules to prevent infection.
Clean your hands and wear protective clothing.
Wash your hands often and wear protective clothing to
prevent spreading germs from one person to another and
to keep germs away from yourself (see page 53).
Clean the space and bedding.
Clean the area where births and exams happen, to
keep germs away (see page 57).
Clean and sterilize tools.
Wash and sterilize tools to kill any germs on them
(see page 59).
Get rid of wastes safely.
Throw away waste products carefully to prevent people in
the community from getting sick from the germs left on
them (see page 67).
Remember: Infection can spread most easily when a health worker is
caring for many people. For example, if her hands are not clean or her
tools are not sterile, she will pass germs from one woman to another
to another. For this reason, a woman giving birth at a hospital or
maternity center with many other women has more risk of infection
than a woman giving birth at home.
Adapt this book to work for you
This chapter contains many detailed instructions for
preventing infection. They are all important, but they
may not all be possible. You will have to decide
which you are able to do, or if there are ways you
can adapt the instructions to work for you.
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A Book for Midwives (2010)