Grand Bassa County – Traditional midwives also known as traditional birth attendants (TBA) in electoral District 5, Grand Bassa County say the lack of electricity during delivery is a ‘death trap’ for many pregnant women in the area.
They then made an appeal for electricity at clinics in the area, calling on the county administration and other philanthropists to intervene.
Speaking recently at their monthly meeting in Trodain Town, the TBAs said they are constrained to use flashlights during night delivery, a risky situation that sometimes causes death of pregnant women and their babies.
Madam Nyondaynea Kangar, head of the TBAs, described the situation as a “setback to women and children in their area”.
“I feel so sad to see my friend women giving birth without the proper materials and losing their lives because of the environment we find ourselves in,” she said.
She said women in the rural areas find it very difficult to get to the clinic because of the lack of road connectivity, emphasizing that the lives of women and their babies are usually at risk during night delivery due to the lack of electricity.
Although bad road network is a challenge, she said many men sometimes take their pregnant wives to the midwives at night during labor pain.
“After those men suffer to walk two to three hours just to save the lives of their babies and the mother, flashlight is the only means of electricity we have and sometimes the battery of the flashlights finished which causes some women to loss their lives,” the traditional midwives said.
TBAs help provide basic health care, support and advice during pregnancy and are responsible to guard or lead pregnant woman to the clinic during labor for safe delivery.
Many of them are knowledgeable based on traditional delivery methods but have been discourage from carrying out delivery at home. Health practitioners say home delivery is one of the causes of maternal mortality in Liberia.
The country’s maternal mortality rate (MMR) remains one of the highest in the sub-region. Liberia is one of the 42 countries in the world with high maternal mortality, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The 2013’s Demographic Health Survey (LDHS) shows that the country’s MMR was 1,072 per 100,000 live births, a retrogression from a rate of 770 per 100,000 live births back in 2007.
Medical experts have named several factors responsible for the high MMR including lack of training, increase work load, shortage of midwives, bad roads in rural areas, and lack of health logistics as well as limited knowledge of health policies.
The lack of adequate health workers in rural communities creates a void for these TBAs to fill despite the risks involved.
Report by Elton Wroinbee Tiah