It occurred to me recently that it’s been a while since I wrote about people who have had a big impact in the world of midwifery – these are the sorts of things I think about when I am out running – and then as if she had somehow tuned into the mêlée of my mind, Rixa posted an article on Mother Health International which made me scurry over to their website.
You can read what they’re about on their blog but essentially these are an international group of midwives providing care to women in various remote countries.
What struck me most about these women was how women centric the birth stories were. This is going to sound stupid, but reading them, I found myself wishing I could have access to that level of midwifery care in labour. Which is total madness, because these women are working in a blow up dome in Haiti, and frankly I have stayed at campsites with better facilities than the ones they are having to work in.
Does that makes it more, or less sad that I nevertheless found the idea of birthing in their care more appealing than birthing in this country?
If you read some of the birth stories you get such a strong sense that these midwives, these women (and I’m not sure what order I put those attributes in here) are confident that a baby will find a way to be born. They recently posted a saying recited by the village midwives and elders among the African Yoruba
“The goats have no midwives. The sheep have no midwives. When the goat is pregnant she is safely delivered. When the sheep is pregnant she is safely delivered. You, in this state of pregnancy, will be safely delivered.”
I really love that.
These watchers put faith in the birthing mothers, faith in their attendants, and faith in their own skills. I love the sense of community that just beams out of their blog and knowing that they are volunteering in some really hardcore conditions, and yet barely mention them.
I find women like these really humbling.
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