midwives links from ips news

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BRASIL:More than 200 ways of being a mother

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 13, 2010 (IPS) - "You can only have one mother," as the saying goes, but in Brazil there are 215 ways of becoming a mother, one for each of the ethnic groups in this South American country. Promoting maternal health while respecting cultural traditions is a major health challenge.

Silvia Angelice de Almeida, who works at the state National Health Foundation's (FUNASA) Department of Indigenous Health, knows all about it from her nursing experience.

Some indigenous peoples believe the placenta must be returned to the community after birth. Others regard it as important that people should be born, and die, on their own land. In some native villages, special care is given to pregnant women, including particular haircuts and body painting.

"We have general guidelines for infant and maternal health, but we found we needed others, specifically for indigenous peoples," Almeida told IPS.

One of these, on "inter-cultural healthcare," includes respect for native healers or "pajés," shamans, traditional midwives and natural medicine.

"The concept of pregnancy is different among native peoples. Field staff have to undertake training in order to be able to address these issues," Almeida stressed.

According to the state National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), Brazil has 460,000 indigenous people divided into 215 ethnic groups, making up 0.25 percent of the national population of over 193 million.

There may be between 100,000 and 190,000 more native people living outside the indigenous territories, some of them in urban areas, and an unknown number have not yet been contacted, according to FUNAI.

The known native population is spread over 24 of the country's 26 states, 336 administrative centres, 4,413 villages and 615 indigenous territories comprising 107 million hectares, equivalent to 12.6 percent of the area of Brazil. MORE

COLOMBIA:
Midwives Seek Legal Recognition, Respect

BOGOTÁ, Jul 13, 2010 (IPS) - In Colombia, western medicine has nearly succeeded in pushing midwives -- "parteras" or "comadronas," as they are known in Spanish -- out of existence. But some tenacious practitioners are pushing for a law to formalise the role of midwife as a health worker.

"Through 2009 and so far in 2010, there have been no deaths of women attended by a member of the United Midwives of the Pacific Association," said Liceth Quiñones, 22, who works as a midwife in Buenaventura, the principal Colombian port on the Pacific coast.

Daughter of 60-year-old midwife Rosmilda Quiñones, Liceth was three in 1991 when her mother founded the association, which she still heads. With the acronym ASOPARUPA, it has 250 members in the western departments (provinces) of Chocó, Valle, Cauca and Nariño.MORE

Midwives vs. Doctors in U.S. Maternal Mortality Crisis

NEW YORK, Jul 9, 2010 (IPS) - "I was baking a cake when my contractions were two minutes apart," Kristine says, her voice warm with memory, "not in a hospital, holding onto a bedside somewhere screaming."

She speaks of her experience tenderly. "I felt like giving birth was in my hands, having it at home," she says, "not on a doctor's schedule, in somebody else's hands. By the time my daughter was born, I felt like my midwife was a part of my family."
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PERU: Birthing Houses Combine Native Traditions, Modern Medicine

PUERTO OCOPA, Peru, Sep 15 , 2008 (IPS) - "Ashaninka women give birth at home, in accordance with tradition," declares José Ponce, the head of the health committee in Puerto Ocopa, a village of 253 Ashaninka indigenous families deep in the central Peruvian jungle.

But the Peruvian government is trying to convince indigenous women to give birth in medical facilities, in order to cut maternal and infant mortality rates.

Since 2004, it has attempted to achieve this goal through intercultural health care initiatives, with sexual and reproductive health programmes developed as part of the public health system but based on respect for indigenous cultural practices and traditions. One of the cornerstones of this effort is the creation of birthing facilities in rural areas.

These are simply constructed houses where women can go through labour and delivery accompanied by their husbands and children. In most cases, they are also accompanied by the midwife from their community. As a result, women are attended during delivery by people they trust as well as medical personnel, which reduces the risk of fatal complications.

There are now 390 of these birthing houses throughout the country. The ultimate goal is for every rural health centre to have a similar facility, so that all women can give birth surrounded by their loved ones yet still have access to the advantages of modern medicine. But there are still many obstacles to overcome before this becomes a reality.MORE

PAKISTAN: Community Midwives Gain Recognition But Concerns Remain

KARACHI, Feb 8, 2010 (IPS) - As Kanwal Gul, 25, lay on the delivery table a year ago, preparing to give birth to her first child, she made sure the traditional birth attendant (TBA) assisting her knew exactly what to do. Put on the gloves, she instructed her.

Gul also made sure a plastic sheet had been laid out on the delivery table just before she was to give birth and that the TBA had her safe delivery kit.

Gul belongs to village Mahmood Taheem, in Matiari district of the province, some 230 kilometres north of the port city of Karachi, where she has been working as a community midwife alongside three TBAs.

A certified midwife since 2004, Gul received a one-week training in community midwifery three years ago through a pilot project initiated by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in Sindh province, between November 2006 and December 2007.MORE