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EXAMPLES OF INFORMATION AND EXPERIENCES THAT
TRADITIONAL MIDWIVES CAN SHARE WITH HEALTH WORKERS:
• Personal experiences and insights from many years of attending births.
• How to respond to the common questions and concerns of pregnant women
in terms of the local culture and language (see the story of Janaki and
Saraswati, p. 13-1).
• How to feel the position and size of the unborn baby; doing this in a friendly,
confidence-building way.
• Safe ways to help make labor easier and shorter:
– Allow the woman in labor to eat a little, if she feels hungry.
– Give her herbal teas and other drinks.
– Permit the woman to get up and walk around, or to change to any position
that is comfortable.
– Show her real babies or pictures of babies happily nursing. The warm feeling
this produces in the mother helps her womb contract strongly. If
labor slows down, let a baby or caring person suck the woman’s breasts.
• Ways to give comfort and to calm the fears that can slow or stop labor:
– Avoid letting the room get too crowded with friends and relatives.
– Avoid having those present discuss cases of death or misfortune in
childbirth.
– Reassure the woman, hold her, massage her, and comfort her. Let her feel
your confidence that all is progressing well.
• The need of the woman in labor to have a kind and sympathetic person stay
– close to her and offer support. This person could be the midwife, or the
– woman’s sister, jnother, or close friend—or, if acceptable, her husband.*
• Knowledge of local beliefs and traditions relating to childbirth.
In Mexico, for example, some village women believe it is essential to take the
following preventive measures:
Using a ‘belly band’ to
prevent the baby from trying
to come out through the
mother’s mouth.
Tying the umbilical cord to
the mother’s leg until the
placenta comes out, to keep it
from crawling back inside.
Burying the placenta
in a cornet of the
room to protect the
mother’s spirit.
Traditional midwives can tell health workers about common local beliefs and
discuss ways to respect them when attending births. If a belief is helpful, health
workers can encourage it. If harmless, they can go along with the custom to help
the family feel more confident and comfortable. If it is harmful, they should help
people understand why. Or they may be able to build on local beliefs to help explain
new and healthier ways. (See the story from Nigeria on the next page.)
*A study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed the importance of having a familiar, loving
person present at childbirth. The average length of labor for first births in a Guatemalan hospital was
8.8 hours for mothers accompanied by a sympathetic woman, and 19.3 hours for women who were
attended only by nurses and doctors. Also, those with companions had fewer birth complications and
felt more warmly toward their new babies. Does this speak in favor of home births?