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Train to Serve Mothers, Babies, and Communities in Low-Resource Settings

Safe Beginnings prepares Seventh-day Adventist mission-minded helpers to strengthen maternal-newborn wellness and safety in low-resource settings, like rural districts. This training equips students to lead community-wide childbirth education, involve fathers and family decision-makers, conduct personalized prenatal and postpartum visits, support healthy pregnancy and breastfeeding, teach birth preparation and coping skills, screen for mother-baby warning signs, discover barriers to care, connect families with local resources, and help coordinate timely transportation when medical care is needed.

Safe Beginnings Pioneers do not diagnose, treat, manage labor, supervise home births, deliver babies, or replace skilled birth attendants. They serve by educating, observing, documenting concerns, encouraging timely care-seeking, and surrounding mothers and babies with practical Christian support.

Men and Women Serving Together for Mothers and Babies

This training is designed for both men and women who want to serve mothers, babies, and families in low-resource settings. In many communities, women will take the lead in prenatal and postpartum visitation where they will offer personalized education, warning-sign screening, breastfeeding support, and follow-up care to expectant and new mothers. Men also play a vital role by helping teach community awareness classes, supporting fathers and family decision-makers, coordinating transportation, and helping mobilize the community to protect mothers and babies.

The Need for Safe Beginnings

Many mothers and newborns still die from preventable or treatable causes. WHO estimates that about 260,000 women died during or following pregnancy and childbirth in 2023, with just over 90% of maternal deaths occurring in low- and lower-middle-income countries. Sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia together accounted for about 87% of global maternal deaths that year. UNICEF reports that 2.3 million babies died during the first 28 days of life in 2024, about 6,200 newborn deaths each day. Neonatal mortality remains highest in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and the most common causes include prematurity, birth asphyxia or trauma, pneumonia, and sepsis.

Behind these numbers are practical barriers that many families face: long distances to medical care, lack of transportation, cost, limited awareness of warning signs, shortages of skilled providers, fear or mistrust of medical facilities, and delays in deciding when to seek help. Safe Beginnings was created to help address these gaps through community education, transportation coordination, and personalized visitation. The goal is not to replace medical care, but to strengthen the community around mothers and babies so families are better prepared, warning signs are recognized earlier, barriers are discovered sooner, and timely care-seeking becomes easier.

How the Safe Beginnings Ministry Model Works

Community-wide Education

Safe Beginnings begins with community-wide education because mothers and babies are safest when the people around them know how to help. Pioneers lead maternal-newborn awareness classes for mothers, fathers, families, churches, and community helpers, covering healthy pregnancy, birth preparation, breastfeeding, postpartum recovery, newborn care, warning signs, and timely care-seeking.

Emergency Transport Coordination

The ministry also helps the community organize transportation support by identifying barriers, naming available helpers, creating practical transport plans, and coordinating emergency transportation when a mother or baby needs medical care.

Personalized Support through Home Visitation

Once the community is educated and a transportation plan is in place, trained women provide personalized prenatal and postpartum visits with expectant and new mothers to apply the education to each family’s needs, screen for warning signs and barriers, support breastfeeding and recovery, connect families with local resources, and help activate the care-seeking plan when needed.

About the Safe Beginnings Maternal-Newborn Ministry Course

The Safe Beginnings Maternal-Newborn Ministry course gives students a simple, practical foundation for mother-baby ministry in low-resource settings. Students learn how to teach community-wide maternal-newborn classes, support healthy pregnancy and sound personal care, prepare families for birth, explain common medical interventions, encourage comfort measures and position changes in labor, support postpartum recovery, teach newborn care, promote breastfeeding, recognize mother-baby warning signs, discuss postpartum natural family planning, map local resources, and apply the Safe Beginnings Ministry Model in their own community.

Course Structure

This 24-hour course is offered online through Moodle and includes recorded lectures, downloadable handouts, short quizzes, and practical field projects. Students apply what they are learning to their own community by exploring local needs, resources, transportation barriers, and ministry opportunities. The course concludes with one 2-hour live ministry planning session where students discuss their Safe Beginnings Ministry Plans and receive guidance for next steps.

Course Topics

Click on the drop-down arrow for a description of each topic.

Healthy Pregnancy, Happy Baby

Discover how to teach the importance of prenatal care, principles of a healthy pregnancy, common pregnancy complaints, and ways to encourage fathers and family members to support the mother.

2. Birth Step-by-Step

Discover how to teach the normal progression of labor and what positions support labor progress.

3. Pain Coping Skills that Work

Discover how to teach breathing, mindset, and comfort measures to effectively manage natural labor pain.

4. Medical Interventions

Learn how to raise awareness of life-saving medical interventions that may be needed when mother-baby concerns arise. Encourage trust in qualified medical providers and rally the community to support timely care-seeking and emergency transportation.

5. Caring for Mom

Learn how to support postpartum recovery through education on rest, hygiene, nutrition, emotional support, family help, warning signs, and follow-up medical care.

6. Welcome Baby

Learn how to teach basic newborn care, normal newborn behavior, warmth, hygiene, safe sleep, cord care, and signs that a baby needs medical attention.

7. Great Start Breastfeeding

Learn how to demonstrate proper latch technique, teach the benefits of breastfeeding, and how to support breastfeeding with adequate nutrition, frequent feeding, and reducing maternal stress.

8. Maternal-Newborn Warning Signs

Learn to teach the community how to identify warning signs in pregnancy, birth, postpartum recovery, and newborn care that require prompt medical attention, timely referral, and transportation coordination.

9. Postpartum Natural Family Planning

Learn how to explain natural family planning methods, the importance of period tracking, the relationship between breastfeeding and fertility, medical birth control options where available, and healthy birth spacing.

10. Community Resource Navigation and Cultural Contextualization

Map local hospitals, clinics, skilled birth attendants, transportation options, food support, churches, community helpers, and other resources that can support mothers and babies. Learn how to understand local beliefs, practices, and concerns around pregnancy, birth, postpartum recovery, newborn care, and breastfeeding with curiosity and respect, while encouraging safe practices and timely care-seeking.

11. Safe Beginnings Ministry Model

Learn how the Safe Beginnings model works in practice, including community education, transportation coordination, personalized visitation, visit structure, documentation, partnerships, and long-term ministry planning.

12. LIVE Ministry Planning Meeting

Gather with your instructor and fellow students for a 2-hour live session focused on prayer, discussion, and practical ministry planning. Students will review their Safe Beginnings Ministry Plans, discuss local needs and transportation barriers, ask questions, and receive guidance for serving mothers, babies, and families in their own communities.

Earn Your Certificate as a Safe Beginnings Maternal-Newborn Associate

Students who complete the recorded lessons, quizzes, field projects, Safe Beginnings Ministry Plan, and live ministry planning session receive a certificate of completion as a Safe Beginnings Pioneer. This certificate recognizes training in international mother-baby ministry for low-resource settings, including community education, personalized visitation, maternal-newborn wellness, breastfeeding support, warning-sign recognition, community resource navigation, transportation coordination, and the Safe Beginnings Ministry Model.

This certificate does not authorize graduates to diagnose, treat, manage labor, supervise home births, deliver babies, or replace skilled birth attendants. Safe Beginnings Pioneers are trained to educate, observe, document concerns, encourage timely care-seeking, and coordinate practical support, like emergency transportation, for mothers and babies.

Equity-Based International Tuition

To make this training accessible for students serving in low-resource settings, tuition is offered at two rates. Students living in the U.S. or another high-income country pay the standard tuition rate. Students living in low- or lower-middle-income countries may use the reduced international tuition rate.

Standard Tuition, U.S. and High-Income Countries: $350
Reduced International Tuition, Low- and Lower-Middle-Income Countries: $75

Ready to Begin?

Start preparing for mother-baby mission service in low-resource settings. Enroll in the Safe Beginnings Maternal-Newborn Ministry Course and learn how to teach, visit, support, screen, connect, and help families reach timely care. Join the interest list to receive updates about the next cohort (November 2026), course availability, and enrollment details.

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