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Birth in Tanzania

Finding time to catch up with Diary entries is again a problem - I just seem to be getting busier and busier!

We had a visit from a midwife working in Tanzania the other day. She called in to stock up on some books and materials that she could use in educating the midwives and traditional birth attendants, who care for most women giving birth in Tanzania. We began chatting about what was happening there and she explained that although she has been living there for 3 years she is only now seeking registration as a midwife. Most births occur in hospitals and the women aspire to being flat on their backs on a bed for birth - the “western” way of doing things.

This sounded very much like birth in other parts of Africa that I have visited. While we strive to encourage western women back to their roots and traditional ways of birthing in active, upright positions, those in developing nations try to emulate the affluent western women - they long to have a clean sheet on a bed! At least the use of drugs for pain is very limited in Tanzania and the women accept that pain is a normal part of labour.

One of the biggest problems in Tanzania is the lack of transport and extreme poverty. Many women labour for a long time, unable to get to help. Perhaps eventually they are able to get a ride to a hospital, but often by then they have suffered extreme damage of the pelvic floor muscles, perhaps resulting in terrible fistulas that will ruin their reproductive lives forever. This is a particular problem amongst young girls, who often begin having babies before they are fully grown themselves. The damage caused by trying to give birth to a baby that is clearly too large for the immature pelvis may mean a life of exclusion and ostracism from her family and certainly her husband. The midwife I spoke to told me about the programs that some pioneering doctors have set up to repair some of this damage so that these young women can lead productive lives again.

When you look at th excesses of western medical interference in birth - the unnecessary surgery (caesareans and episiotomy), over use of drugs, necessity for forceps or vacuum extraction of babies, the hospital acquired infections, and the traumatic psychological damage caused to women by all this, it is hard to justify, especially when so many of the world’s women just struggle for the very basics. It would be wonderful if western women could return to some of the simple basics of birth and the women in Africa and other poverty stricken areas could have just a little of the medical care that is overabundant in our communities. Whoa..... watch out for the flying pigs.....!

Posted by andrea at March 23, 2005 07:01 PM