By Team Bumi Sehat | Project Leaders
Our Aceh Midwife Training Project is almost 30% funded! We've received donations from 74 unique donors so far, and 5 of you are regular monthly donors. The monthly donations help us so much as we can expect these contributions in each monthly disbursement.
Recently, members of the Bali clinic went to visit Aceh. As part of their visit, they taught intensive workshops to update Neo-Natal Resuscitation and other essential birth skills, such as suturing perineal tears, that need regular refresher courses. Three of the Aceh midwives are undergoing their extra year of training as mandated by the government and we hope to start the last three next year.
We also wanted to highlight the traditional birth attendants who help support the Bumi Sehat midwives. Having a traditional birth attendant help a woman and her family during labor and post partum is a very old cultural tradition in Aceh. Historically, these women support the woman in labor by looking after her and her family with cooking or cleaning—whatever needs to be done. The traditional birth attendants are not formally educated but have a lot of experience attending births and helping women. They are usually paid a small fee by the family.
Our midwives consider them birth allies as they can help with small medical and non medical tasks, as well as general tasks such as rubbing a woman's back, helping with rebozo techniques to help shift a breech baby, walking with her, and talking to her through the long hours of labor. The birth attendants can be a good source of comfort and advice. This gives the new Mom a whole support team looking after her.
The attendants may stay with a laboring woman and her family in the early stages, giving the midwife a chance to rest or help other patients at the clinic. They can also notify the Bumi Sehat Aceh clinic when a woman's labor has progressed and it's time for the midiwife to come for a home birth. Here are some photos of the traditional birth attendants in action, helping support our midwives in Aceh!
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