Every day around the world, thousands of mothers and their babies are safely taken care of thanks to the midwives by their side. To mark this honourable profession, there is an International Day of the Midwife. This annual occasion brings the medical world together to celebrate the incredible achievements made that year.
Giving all mothers access to medical help
As well as a day of celebration, it is also a day to reiterate and call attention to the improvements still needed to ensure that all women can have access to a qualified midwife. Although this is the norm now in most developed countries, in countries like Myanmar expectant mothers often don’t have access to medical help when they go into labour.
I am sharing my skills as a midwife myself to ensure more mothers in the Magway region of Myanmar can have access to high quality, skilled care provided by a qualified professional. The custom here is often to give birth at home, which of course is respected within our activities, and it’s great to hear more midwives are now being asked to attend home births.
My placement will focus on strengthening my midwives’ knowledge through a number of refresher training sessions across the remote region. Midwives can then be confident in dealing with any situation, from antenatal and neonatal check-ups, through to labour itself.
Natmauk’s own celebrations
To mark International Day of the Midwife, I organised a celebratory day for approximately 100 midwives and other health nurses in Natmauk’s Maternal and Child Health department.
It was amazing to see everyone turn up with pride in their profession. I did a speech congratulating them on their commitment and unwavering dedication to the women, babies and families within our township, and tried to inspire and motivate them for the future.
Above: The speeches in action
Jennifer Sims, another VSO volunteer from another rural region of Pyin Oo Lwin, joined our special day as a guest speaker. As she is a neonatal nurse from back in the UK, I asked her to do a training presentation on jaundice. She was very informative, and left the midwives in the room confident that they could identify, treat and monitor jaundice in newborns.
Delivery kits
Alongside celebrations and training, the event was also used to formally present all midwives within the region with a delivery kit. These kits were packaged up in a box that would be easy for each of the midwives to carry around with them, and were full of equipment such as newborn weighing scales and antibacterial wash, right through to a resuscitation kit for emergencies.
Demonstrating the new weighing scales
Jennifer and I then did a demonstration on what each piece of equipment did, and how to maintain this equipment so it will last a long time. The midwives were incredibly excited to receive all of this new equipment as they had been using their old kits for years, so it is very important to keep these ones as well looked after as possible!
The day was such a success that I sent the photo below to the International Confederation of Midwives, who were so impressed that they went on to share our story!
The famous photograph with the new delivery kits!
Thank you
It was great to get so many of the midwives in the Magway region coming together to celebrate their achievements; in their daily jobs they generally work in very remote villages, often alone or in small groups. The midwives seemed to go home with boosted morale, and now also much better equipment to care for mothers and babies.
Now the organisation of this special day is over, I am busy starting my first refresher training session. These sessions will be going in to a lot more depth, with the chance to ask questions and do demonstrations.
Thank you so much for getting me over here, it’s exciting to know I’ve got big plans coming up in the next few months to update you on next time. Thanks too for all your wonderful messages so far, I love receiving them, so please keep them coming!
Love,
Sam
