Going Overseas? Read This First!

This blog gets a lot of traffic from midwives and doulas who hope to go get some practical experience overseas.  This can be a good thing...but not always.

Lets learn some things by examining the mistakes of a couple of North American nurses that came here to help in the labor and delivery ward last week.

They walked in eager for an experience, and a great story to tell.  They did not speak the language and are only here for a week. They boasted that they were so excited to be here because they were allowed to do stuff that would be unlawful for them to do in their own country.

They had never worked with laboring mothers, ever, and wanted to waltz in and deliver a "cute little brown baby."  One proceeded ..no kidding... to SLAP and SCREAM at a pushing woman I had been gently coaching for 6 hours already.  Not only was this white lady being rude and demeaning, she was screaming in English....which was not comprehended by anyone but me. This laboring mother who had been doing awesome, was terrified and scared and shut down...her contractions came to a complete stop.  This volunteer then yelled at her for "giving up."  

Next, this educated white nurse went on to try to sneak in a baby delivery by not alerting the midwife that the baby was crowning, but just getting ready to do it herself.  When I realized after a minute that this nurse had NO IDEA what she was doing, (I was having to tell her what to do...) I alerted the midwife myself, who came and delivered the baby.  This adventure seeker was willing to put a mother and baby's lives in danger simply to be able to say she had delivered a baby.  At least that is how I see it.

This nurse then kept correcting and pushing the very experienced national midwife out of the way, because "she wasn't doing it right."  These midwives are so experienced, (about 1000 births a year for 20 years or more) and could put most western midwives to shame, let alone an ER nurse who had never even seen a birth other than of her own.

You know what?  This woman probably is very proud of herself for "helping" these "poor people."  She probably feels like she is making a difference!  And she is.  Just not a good difference.

Here are some the problems I saw in these nurses:

1. Arrogance
2. A focus on the "experience" for themselves instead of serving the people
3. A failure to see these woman as intelligent and amazing people who are worthy of respect.
4. An excitement to do things "they aren't allowed to do" elsewhere.
5. A lack of respect for the culture and experiences of people different than themselves.

Instead, if you are going to volunteer in a country that is not your own:

1. Go in humility, with the heart of a learner and a willingness to lay down "your ways."
2. Do not go to "get your numbers" or to "have an awesome story to tell." Go to serve. Go to learn.
3. See these beautiful women of another land as strong and someone you can learn from.
4. Know your limits.  Do not do what you are not trained to do.
5. Study their language and culture.  Respect who they are and how they do things.
6. Be kind and treat people the way you would want to be treated.

None of us will be perfect, but let love be the focus of what you do and I'm sure things will go a lot better.

*I've changed the continent of origin of the offending parties.

Is He Dead?

I thought he was dead, but I prayed and prayed that he would be okay.

 I had been attending his mother as her labor support person for many hours.  There was no sign that there would be a problem, but when he was born, he was grey, limp, and he did not start breathing or crying on his own.  There was a cord around his neck that was not removed by the student that was delivering him.  Maybe that was the problem, I don't know.

After a couple of minutes, the student realized that this baby needed more than a little stimulation.  I had run and gotten the ambu bag thingy for them just in case.  Sure enough, they started to try and resuscitate him and after what seemed like a very long time he started to cry.  Soon he was nursing. 

I thanked God for another little one that lived.  It was the 2nd close call in one day.

In the tribe I lived with for years, they do not stimulate a baby after it is born.  They just watch and wait to see if it is alive or not.  They never pick it up or touch it unless it cries.  So many of their babies were "stillborn."  In reality though I wonder if they could have lived if they were helped along a bit to take that first breathe. 

Whatever the case, I hate that 50% of children there never have the chance to grow up.  I want to help see that change.

She Decided to Help

I know someone who wasn't afraid to step forward and be a part of the solution.  The following is a guest post from a woman named Jamie Dellesky.  Look her up on her website: http://www.dellesky.com/

Jamie in the Philippines

1,000. I still remember the day that number broke my heart. Shattered it into a million tiny pieces. That’s the average number of women & young girls who die each day because of pregnancy & childbirth related complications. That’s the equivalent of the number of passengers in 4 jumbo jets crashing everyday. Experts say that 80 % of these complications can be prevented if there were simply a trained birth attendant present.  

About two years ago, as I was reading about birth in developing countries, the above statistics were what I found. Alarming. Heartbreaking.  I had spent the past 11 years serving women in my community as a doula & I could see first hand how skilled + knowledgeable care helped to protect the lives of mother’s and babies. I had no idea that my sisters in other countries, specifically developing countries, were losing their lives giving birth because of a lack of care.

As this began to pierce my heart, I then began to ask God about how I could help. Surely, there was something I could do. But what could one family do that could make a difference?  The more I researched, the more I kept finding that the world needed roughly 300,000 new midwives. Midwives that are trained in life saving skills, midwives that can go to where the women live to make accessibility possible, midwives that can give safe, kind & loving care, the kind of care that every mother and baby deserve.

A simple equation began to work itself out in my mind. If what is needed are midwives + I am capable of learning =then I need to train to become a midwife.  After much prayer and leading from God, that’s exactly what I did.

Last year, my husband & our 3 boys gave up our home, our jobs, sold most of our possessions & packed up the rest and moved to the Philippines to train with a non-profit organization that runs free birth clinics for women in poverty. I spent the year learning how to care for high-risk women & provide life saving skills for those who needed it.  We worked hard to learn more about the problems of resource poor countries & the issues that affect women and children. We witnessed not only the problems that create this global health crisis, but also the solutions. So many women that we served in the birth clinic could have very easily died during or after their births had they not had the life saving care we were able to give.  Excellent care that is free & accessible as well as loving and kind, this is what we see to be working.  This past year of training built a foundation for us that will help us to go into other areas of need in the world.

For us now, that place is Africa. Of the 20 worst countries to be born, 19 of them are in Africa. We are moving to Tanzania to partner with a local church in Dar es Salaam. We will be working on developing an outreach to mothers & babies in a very poor area of this city. This outreach will include aspects of health care that are needed such as health education, nutritional support & baby care. The life- time risk of a woman dying in childbirth in Tanzania is 1 in 23. Our long- term goal is to eventually start a free birth clinic in this neighborhood. 

We also hope to start our own non-profit that can reproduce a healthy model of care within resource poor countries.  A model that offers loving care from local midwives with life saving skills.

We have come to realize that if a lack of midwives means high maternal/infant mortality, then the answer is to provide more midwives. Its not hard to do, there’s enough money & resources in the world, it’s simply a matter of redistributing it.

 

*This family is raising funds to go to Africa.  If you feel you would like to help with that, their website is listed at the beginning of this post.

Midwife/Doula Opportunities Overseas

 

So I have been talking about the need for more midwives. (see post "Midwives Needed.")  

There is no use talking about a problem unless we also talk about a solution. I mentioned the need for more midwives in my post "Midwives Needed."  If that piqued your interest, here is a list of overseas opportunity links for doulas, midwives, or aspiring midwives.

*I have known people who have good experiences with Mercy in Action.  I don't have any personal experience with the others. If anyone knows of programs which I have not included...I would be
interested in hearing about them and adding them to this list.


http://www.mercyinaction.com/midwifery-doula-internships/  - In the Philippines

http://www.bumisehatbali.org/   - in Indonesia‎

http://www.midwifeschool.org/application_internship.html  Another Philippines

 

www.doctorswithoutborders.org - all over

http://www.mamababyhaiti.org - In Haiti

http://shantiuganda.org/ in Uganda

 http://www.motherhealthinternational.org/get-involved.html - somewhere in Africa

http://www.africanbirthcollective.org/html/Exchange.html -somewhere in Africa

http://www.globalmidwives.org/volunteer/ - in Sierra Leone

https://darlaluzhondurasvolunteers.wordpress.com/volunteer-opportunities/ - in Honduras

 

Midwives Needed!

Every minute 60 babies and 2 pregnant or birthing mothers die in the developing world. Every minute. All day. All night. Without stopping. 

Between the time you ate breakfast and the time you ate your lunch...that would be 600 women dead, and 18,000 babies dead.

I have known some of these mothers and seen the bodies of their babies.

Most of the deaths that I have been writing about could be prevented if a skilled and trained birth attendant was available. 

This is a link from the World Health Organization on the need for midwives:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2011/midwifery_report_20110620/en/