Motherhood in Malawi is a battle against medical odds Traditions, lack of supplies and poor healthcare combine to make the country the most dangerous place to give birth Nurse Nitta Chakanika of Joyful Motherhood prepares to examine a newborn baby. Tradition dictates that most women in Malawi give birth at home, with the help of local women known as traditional birth attendants. Nurse Nitta Chakanika of Joyful Motherhood prepares to examine a newborn baby. Tradition dictates that most women in Malawi give birth at home, with the help of local women known as traditional birth attendants. Stephanie Hegarty Topics: News World Africa Dorothy Ngoma Joyce Banda Rose Project Malawi Ntcheu Wed, Jun 5, 2013, 01:00 First published: Wed, Jun 5, 2013, 01:00 In a rural village on the outskirts of Lilongwe, chubby-cheeked Pemphero Cosmas is crying in the arms of her uncle, confused by the group that have gathered around her. She’s too young to understand that her mother, Eliza, died a year ago, haemorrhaging while giving birth on the back of a bicycle as she tried to reach a health centre. It’s her visitor that has attracted all this attention. Nitta Chakanika is a nurse with a tiny Malawian NGO called Joyful Motherhood which delivers baby formula, sanitary equipment and life-saving advice to babies left behind when their mothers die. Malawi is one of the most dangerous places to give birth – one in 36 Malawian women will die in childbirth (in Ireland, it’s one in 8,100). As Dorothy Ngoma, head of Malawi’s Safe Motherhood Initiative, puts it, “being pregnant is described as having one foot in the grave”. Maternal danger Ngoma set up Malawi’s first health workers’ union at a time when there were more Malawian nurses in the UK than in Malawi. She campaigned for higher wages, better training and safer working conditions and reversed that trend. Now she is working to reverse Malawi’s abysmal record on maternal health. She’s been helped by Joyce Banda, the country’s first female president, who came to power in April 2012. Since then the Safe Motherhood Initiative has been a priority. Tradition dictates that most women in Malawi give birth at home, with the help of local women known as “traditional birth attendants”. They are often hours or even days away from a medical centre. And, in a country where three-quarters live below the poverty line and 11 per cent are HIV-positive, malnutrition and disease are rife. Pregnant women here are already at much greater risk of a difficult delivery. Traditional birth attendants were banned by the last president in 2007. But the ban failed to engage Malawi’s real leaders – the locally appointed chiefs who dictate life in remote, rural villages where 85 per cent of the population live. To tackle this, Banda has recruited a council of chiefs, lead by the particularly charismatic Chief Macjulio Kwataine of Ntcheu, to challenge tradition. But as that campaign gains traction, the government has to convince pregnant women hospitals are where they want to be. Bwaila Hospital in Lilongwe has the busiest labour ward in the country. Last year 18,272 women passed through its doors, up from 15,678 the year before. The labour ward has become a place expecting mothers want to come to. “Bwaila used to be known as a place women came to die,” says Rachel MacLeod Spring, an English midwife sponsored to train staff at Bwaila by a small Irish NGO, the Rose Project, working in HIV and maternal health. Bwaila used to be a massively under-resourced central hospital to which only serious cases were referred, often too late. Sixteen or more women could deliver in beds side by side, some even on the floor. 1 2 3 Next > Wed, Jun 5, 2013, 01:00 First published: Wed, Jun 5, 2013, 01:00
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 13:29:12 +0000
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