Several months ago my aunt gave me a book called
Nine Hills to Nambonkaha. It's an incredible book written by a Peace Corps volunteer, Sarah Erdman, who spent two years living in the West African nation of Cote D'Ivoire. She has some health training but finds that without a midwife, the villagers call on her when women are having complications during delivery. She describes a few situations where she is called to help women in labour. I just want to write an excerpt from this book, because I think it really highlights the problem in many rural villages in Africa.
"Mariam is a complicated case. She is no longer pacing, and she looks cold and pale against the pagne that serves as a delivery table. Her contractions come strong, but nothing happens. There are rushes of blood, swallowed cries. This labour is too long for a third child. With the help of my midwiving book, I conjure up several drastic life-threatening scenarios and try to figure out which one applies tonight...
The vielles (elders) try indigenous techniques. Kinafou fills a calabash with dried corn. She fits it against Mariam's stomach and rocks her back and forth, the corn shaking with a sound like maracas against her tight belly. Another vielle finds a clay pot with its side missing and puts burning coal inside. Mariam squats over it, as if to smoke the baby out....
Mariam tenses and shudders. A tear squeezes out of her eye and slides to the floor. It is pitch-dark outside, and the air is cool. There is no car here, no phone, no sink, no bright light. We are one village under the stars, and we are all alone. But the vielles are working hard, crouched around this struggling woman. One sits behind her, supporting her head and torso, holding her hands. Blood saturates a pagne and pools on the floor" (Erdman; 2003, 81-82).
This woman lives. But many do not.
Every birth should be attended by a trained health professional. Labour is no less scary for a mother in New York than a mother in Malawi. Especially when there are life threatening complications.
