Midwifery in Afghanistan

by Kara Maia Spencer, www.MaiaHealingArts.com 

The first post-Taliban class of midwives has graduated in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Twenty-two women recently graduated as midwives ready to assist rural Afghanistan with birth control and midwifery services.

Siri DePaolo, CNM, is a midwife, nurse, grandmother, and educator who taught in Bamiyan. She said, "Despite all our differences, culture, faith, language and so on, birth and our common needs as women connected us on a much stronger and higher level than anticipated or previously experienced." 

Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world. The Taliban rule prohibited women from working, and men are culturally forbidden from attending births. Combined with the brutality of war and oppression, women and childrens' lives have suffered the worst. Training quality midwives to provide care to women in rural areas is a breath of hope for families in Afghanistan who lack maternity care access.

The International Midwife Assistance, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving maternal and infant health globally, organized the 18- month Community Midwifery Training Program in Bamiyan. Midwifery Today magazine has a resource list for more information on Midwifery in Afghanistan.

Comments

[rosepetal]

When Siri & Marion gave their talk on IAM in Afghanistan I was shocked to hear that the Taliban actually killed all the Womyn doctors & Midwives in Afghanistan. This obviously caused womyn in Afghanistan to birth without trained midwives. Most of the birthing womyn were not even aware of the importance of sterilizing simple equipment. Siri told us she was trying to figure out how to teach the women to boil the razor blades for 10 minutes to sterilize them. She listened to them singing their traditional songs, remembered one that 2 minutes long and told them to sing that song 5 times while boiling the razor blades. She said this brought the tetanus level down much lower in the newborns.
It was touching to see her be at a point of tears a few times throughout the talk, esp. at the end when she mentioned they wouldn't be able to go to Afghanistan to follow up with the midwives they taught due to problems with travelling...
pray for peace.
may all beings be happy & healthy.