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I read this article the other day (thanks Lori!) A Mother’s Final Look at Life
In Impoverished Sierra Leone, Childbirth Carries Deadly Odds by Kevin Sullivan and phew, there’s a lot to say.
How can we have gotten to this place, where a woman who has the inherent biological ability to birth children, will likely lose her life doing it? We (and this is the global we) have had all of our power taken away; economic, family, community, and biological and the result is that life’s become pretty crappy for a woman who doesn’t have the ability or knowledge or ‘right’ to keep herself and her children safe. For too many women, the wisdom that we need to care for ourselves and others is completely gone. We’ve lost our wisdom through violence and oppression in most of the world, in the world of the west- the land of gender equality, we’ve been handing it over. Just giving it up out of fear. We’re not oppressed, right? But yet we go against our wisdom and our better judgement and eat the crap sold to us. And then we say thank you, thank you very much for keeping me nominally safe.
This article was so depressing, but I really believe that if we keep spreading around our birth stories, stories that promote our power and wisdom, we’ll slowly, worldwide, come to the tipping point.
Here’s a sample reaction letter that I was sent:
ombudsman@washpost.com
Dear Ombudsman,
I was deeply disturbed by the cover article, “A Mother’s Final Look At Life”. Mr. Sullivan’s article seems as if it was written to promote OB/Gyns as the answer to every obstetrical problem when in fact they are often part of the problem. Did Mr. Sullivan talk to anyone at WHO? Repeated scientific studies have shown improved outcomes with midwifery care and poorer outcomes with obstetrical care. Case in point according to his article, “a woman’s chance of dying in childbirth in the United States is 1 in 4,800. In Ireland… it is 1 in 48,000. Given that the US has more obstetricians per populace than any other country how could having more obstetricians be beneficial?
The mother in the article, Fatmata, died from post-partum hemorrhage secondary to severe anemia. She had chosen not to take her prenatal vitamins and had been fasting for Ramadan in the precedening three weeks! How on earth would having more drugs and more doctors in a hospital have changed her poor eating habits over the previous three weeks?!!
What could have made a difference was having someone in the community providing knowledge about nutrition. There is nothing wrong with dirt floors for birth. The problem is lack of adequate prenatal care and lack of nutrition. These problems will not be solved by trying to get impoverished nations to embrace the US medical model, nor should they.
More concerning is how can we accept the fact mothers in the United States die from childbirth 10 times as often as mothers in Ireland? We don’t need more articles telling us living conditions in improvished countries with no running water are horrid. We need articles that peel back the lies told by our medical associations in the United States. Families here in the US need to know that women and children are losing their lives and health at unreasonable rates because OBs don’t want to admit midwifery care and good nutrition-which they don’t provide-is the healthiest option.
Sincerely Disturbed,
Dr. L. F.
Love,
Heather
The author also fails to mention that it is estimated that 90% of all women in Sierra Leone have been subjected to the horrific practice of female circumcision . This process leaves scarring and adhesions that prevent proper stretching of vaginal tissues during childbirth and can result in the child spending too much time in the birth canal or in hemorrhaging of the mother. Depending on the type of female circumcision performed, the mother may need to have her vagina cut open for sexual intercourse or subsequent childbirth (see type 3 infibulation ).
i am quite concerned that one of the reasons highlighted is that Fatmata was fasting the preceding 3 weeks prior to her death. that in itself is not considered poor eating habit – it’s a religious obligation.
one that i, my sister, friends, colleagues.. all have successfully completed the full month fasting in ramadhan (either in the early, middle or later stages of pregnancy)
i would rather say it is her overall diet throughout the pregnancy that may have contributed to the complication
What a powerful response letter!
We (as a country) seriously need to take care of ourselves before we start/continue to meddle in the affairs (ANY affairs) of other countries!
“Take the plank out of your eye before you try to get the speck out of your neighbor’s eye…)
It’s so sad….that woman’s life could have been saved if only she’d had access to pitocin. I have read that maternal deaths in Afghanistan are appallingly high as well due to things like PPH. It really makes me put my “issues” with my birth not going exactly as I wanted into perspective. I resolve to be less of a whiner after reading this, I’m sure any birthing woman in Sierra Leone would give her right arm to have the luxury of what I saw as a bad birth experience.
I do not believe that reasons for differences in the maternal mortality numbers are necessarily as cut and dried as you take them to be.
Europe’s rates may be lower for any number of reasons. It is overly simplistic to pin it on any one reason, especially the number of OBs per capita. Countries, even states, may have differences in reporting, not to mention different populations, different percentages of birthing mothers (weight, age, education level, health, etc…).
I researched maternal mortality during college (which was about 1993) and discovered that, to my shock, I have the same chance of dying in childbirth as my grandmother did! The BABY gets a much better chance at life, but the mom’s odds are still pretty grim. The lovely obstetrical care I received caused 1) my first baby to be born blue and almost die, and 2) my second baby to be born with a midwife! So I really can’t say that access to obstetrical care is going to help those poor women. Clean water and decent food might, though… maybe they should work on that?
How odd that she would fast, I understood that normally because pregnant women are considered to need to take more careful care of their health, they are not religiously obligated to perform the Ramadan fast. She is just supposed to postpone it until she has completely recovered from the birth.
Also, I’d say there are many things wrong with dirt floors in birth when the dirt floors are in countries where the dirt has been trampled on by animals (known disease vectors). Having animals, especially birds, around in childbirth is a good way to get infections. Not that that is what happened here, but it is a problem.