Live happily!

We lived through 2021, a very important and eventful year for the country. 2022 has been declared the Year of Historical Memory. Every woman who wants to have a child should have that chance. Details of the President’s visit to the Mother and Child National Research Centre.

It is a good and long-term tradition that December 31st is always a business day in the schedule of the Head of State, and quite intense at that. In the morning, the President held a hockey training session and personally congratulated each of his companions in the ice squad. After that he went to the Mother and Child National Research Centre. It is very symbolic in the New Year to visit a place where a new life is being born. But even with this, the agenda of the outgoing year has not yet been fully exhausted.

A unique experience

Arriving at the National Research Centre, the President heard a detailed report on the organisation of perinatal care in the country. In particular, Healthcare Minister Dmitry Pinevich announced the following figures: in terms of infant mortality (2.6 per 1,000 live births in 2020), Belarus is ahead of many developed countries of the world. At the same time, every death of a child is a huge tragedy for parents. The Minister focused on the most important,

“For a family, it doesn’t matter what the statistics are, for them it is a loss and grief of 100 percent. This is why we fight for every child.”

Dmitry Pinevich added that about 250 children with extremely low body weight are born in the country every year. At the same time, the survival rate of such babies (from 500 grams) in the first year of life is more than 80 percent, and the primary disability rate among this category does not exceed 17-18 percent, which is also a high indicator.

Photo by BELTA

In turn, the Director of the Mother and Child National Research Centre, Sergei Vasiliev, told the President about one of the promising areas of work of the centre, which is fetoscopic surgery. This is when surgeries are performed on the fetus right in the womb, “Currently, we are treating hemolytic disease of newborns: in fact, we are giving intravenous blood transfusions to children in utero. In case of the syndrome of feto-fetal transfusion, when there is a network of pathological vessels between twins, we coagulate these vessels, as a result, 80 percent of these babies are born before the term. We have already been performing more serious surgeries on the fetus itself.”
By the way, two weeks ago, specialists of the centre, together with colleagues from the Republican Scientific and Practical Centre of Neurology and Neurosurgery, performed the first unique surgery in the country, during which a spinal hernia was removed from a child at a gestational age of 26-27 weeks. The surgery was successful, the prognosis that the functions of the lower extremities will be preserved is favourable, and the pregnancy continues.

Joy of motherhood

The successes of the specialists of the Mother and Child National Research Centre are impressive. Indeed, until recently, children weighing a little more than half a kilogram had practically no chance of surviving. Today, these tiny patients are successfully nursed in most cases. However, there are also women who cannot get pregnant. In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is something that could help them. According to Belarusian legislation, one such procedure is done free of charge. In general, the system works, but needs some improvement. The President touched on this topic, “Recently, literally two or three days ago, we discussed this issue with women. Accidentally. They say we have this system unfinished.”
In particular, according to the Head of State, we are talking about the absence of a data bank and genetic materials for IVF. The President ordered, “We have not developed it. Let’s deal with this and do it at least no worse than in Russia. Let’s do this very quickly. In the first half of next year. We will take all decisions so that it is no worse than in the most developed countries. Now that we agreed that we should develop IVF.

It is a tragedy for a specific family and for a woman if she cannot give birth herself. So let’s resolve this issue. We have taken just half a step and stopped. Let’s create this database. Let’s advertise it. We will do everything so that a woman can give birth. A woman who wants to have a child, should have that chance.”

Well done! But there is no time to relax

Finally, the traditional exchange of gifts. Doctors presented the Head of State with a pre-revolutionary wooden stethoscope. It was found in the Kura outpatient clinic of a general practitioner in the Vitebsk Region, where a hospital operated before the revolution.
The Head of State, in turn, handed over an expert-class ultrasound apparatus to the centre. It is designed for a wide range of studies: obstetric-gynecological, urological, vascular and cardiological, as well as in pediatrics and neonatology. Patients and staff were not left without gifts. In particular, fruits from the colleagues of the President of Belarus in the CIS from southern countries. Aleksandr Lukashenko explained that his friends, the presidents, made him such a present during the recent informal summit of the CIS heads of state and he is happy to share with the doctors. Addressing them, the President said,

“Thank you. I came to you today because it is New Year, of course, but you and I will have a challenging next year. We are always at war. Therefore, I am grateful to you, first of all. And secondly, I ask you not to relax, because who knows how the situation will develop. And it’s not about the pandemic, the coronavirus. We have already learned how to treat this. We will cure it. But we need to be on the alert, ready for all events. Especially negative.”

Meanwhile, in the remaining few hours before the New Year, you always want to believe in the best. Let us be optimists.

By Dmitry Kryat, Polina Konoga, Svetlana Isaenok