Life-Saving Lullabies: Reducing adolescent maternal and neonatal deaths in Zambia

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Across the world, caregivers have sung sentimental and traditional folk lullabies to their babies for over four millennia with many transcending the generations as oral tradition. (McDowell, 1977). Ethnomusicological studies of lullabies texts have uncovered that lullabies are imbued with both covert and overt orientated objectives; from an expression of love and affection as well as a pacifier for mothers' to reclaim precious time for work or sleep (Ebeogu, 2017; Klymasz, 1968). Until now, the potential for extending the functional purpose of lullaby lyrics as a methodological tool for delivering essential knowledge and survival skills to support behaviour change and the development of better parenting practices has been overlooked. 'Life-Saving Lullabies' is a highly novel, adaptable, transferable and sustainable arts-based innovation strategy that seeks to disrupt the traditional models of healthcare practice and service delivery, while informing a new approach to improve the health and wellbeing outcomes of adolescent mothers and their newborn in resource-stressed environments. Central to this, is our human-centred design approach that will: confront inequalities associated with the accessibility of antenatal care services (ANC); improve upon the current ANC practices used to up-skill service users with maternal health information; and empower local communities to conceive new lullabies to address immediate local and national challenges. Importantly, we will achieve this by foregrounding the needs of young mothers from their experience rather than those defined by clinicians or others removed from the intimate daily and nightly social being of women.In recognising mothers' experiences as women, our primary focus will be supporting the transition of adolescents into motherhood to reduce maternal and postnatal mortalities across the care-giving continuum: pregnancy, birth, postnatal and childhood. This project fills an urgent strategic need in Zambia- increasing the number of youth-friendly services that address the family planning needs of adolescents and educates them about pregnancy, danger signs and newborn care. The goal of the project is to apply art, design and humanities research methodologies to discover, define, develop, deliver and empower adolescent parents and caregivers with responsive skills for meeting their needs as both women and mothers. We will apply our collective knowledge to co-compose a repertoire of new 'life-saving lullabies'. This repertoire will created by and for local communities and will directly respond to the President's declaration, the strategic needs of the Ministry of Health and the viewpoint of frontline MCH teams: the impact of pregnancy and motherhood on women; awareness of malaria in pregnancy; awareness of the critical danger signs following birth (APGAR: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration); importance of medication compliance and good nutrition for a healthier mother and baby; and attending ANC services for a safer pregnancy and delivery.