On Monday, May 12 – one day after Mother’s Day – I read an article in the Kenyan newspaper THE STANDARD that had this front-page headline: Mothers Speak: Pain, Power and the plea for dignity in delivery rooms. The first lines of the article are: As the world honours mothers, Kenyan women share harrowing tales of childbirth neglect, courage and hope – demanding dignity, safety, and compassion in hospitals where motherhood begins and, too often, is nearly lost.
The lengthy article which continues inside the newspaper describes some experiences that various women had. One second time mother, who experiencing the unmistakable signs of labour pains, presented herself at a hospital. “A nurse looked me over and told me to go home ‘You don’t look like you are due. Maybe come back in a month’.” When the woman insisted that she WAS due, she was sent for an ultra-sound which showed a serious problem – the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck. Still she was sent home. Noticing that something was terribly wrong, she returned to the hospital and was accused of “causing a scene”. She was bounced from one doctor to the next, and finally told she would need a caesarean section. After a 30-minute wait, she was made to walk to the operating theatre – alone. She said that her treatment “felt more like punishment than medical care”. The baby was safely delivered but the nightmare was not over. A nurse tried to force her to get out of bed before the anaesthesia had worn off and she almost collapsed
The article goes on to describe other horror stories. I chose this particular one because it reminded me of something my own mother experienced in a Kitchener hospital. Her family physician was to deliver one of her babies. When he examined her at the hospital, he said, “we’ve got lots of time until the baby arrives.” Shortly after he left, the attending nurse had him paged. Apparently the doctor had left the hospital, so a hospital doctor delivered the baby.
The Kenyan woman above is quoted as saying, “Respectful maternal care is a right, not a luxury. No woman should leave a hospital feeling broken after childbirth.
In both Canada and Kenya, delivery by a midwife is an option. In both countries, midwives are regulated health care professionals who generally are highly skilled, educated, safe, and ethical. However in Kenya, not all who practice midwifery are trained professsionals. Approximately 50-54% if deliveries are not attended by skilled health professionals.These include “traditional Birth Attendants” (known as TBA’s), as well as neighbours, relatives, and even “self – administered births”. This often results in higher risks for both mothers and babies which can result in increased infant mortality rates.
What I found shocking in the article however is that even in a hospital, horrendous conditions can exist, although I doubt that such conditions would be typical in North American hospitals. I suspect that such horror stories would be the exception rather than the rule.
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This Sunday is Mother’s Day and I plan to do something I haven’t done for the past decade or so, and that is preach a Mothers Day sermon. My mother died in January 2010, and for two years before that she was very ill, a difficult time for us as a family. So when Mother’s Day came around for the past 10 or so years, it was just too emotional, so I either reminded the congregation that Mother’s Day really isn’t a biblical holiday (which it isn’t!) and continued whatever series I was preaching on at the time or I would delegate the Mother’s Day sermon to an associate or intern (who needed the practice).