{"id":11174,"date":"2010-07-12T10:14:59","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T14:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=11174"},"modified":"2010-07-12T10:14:59","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T14:14:59","slug":"changing-the-face-of-childbirth-in-sierra-leone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=11174","title":{"rendered":"Changing the face of childbirth in Sierra Leone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alice Waterman says she has never seen so much blood in her life.\u00c2\u00a0 (Photo: Newborn baby girl Sinnah survived – others are not so lucky)<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old independent midwife from East Anglia has gone to Sierra Leone with VSO in the hope that training local midwives will save lives in a country where one woman in eight dies in childbirth.<\/p>\n

The images she describes are harrowing.<\/p>\n

Blood covered the floor as a mother who had recently given birth to twins struggled to survive.<\/p>\n

She needed a transfusion, but there is no blood bank in this West African state. Staff instead had to find out whether any relatives could help.<\/p>\n

“The situation is very dire. To see it in reality is shocking in the 21st Century,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The death of young women appears to be accepted as part of normal life in Sierra Leone.”<\/p>\n

Difficult journey<\/strong><\/p>\n

And if the risks for mothers are great, their children do not fare much better. One out of every five babies will not live to see the age of two.<\/p>\n

\"Alice<\/a><\/p>\n

The situation is very dire – to see it in reality is shocking in the 21st Century, Alice Waterman<\/strong> (in photo above)<\/em><\/p>\n

The mother survived the birth, said Alice, but sadly one of her babies did not, and Alice says this has left a lasting impression.<\/p>\n

“I wondered about the twins – the first, a girl, had lived and was wrapped in a cloth and left at the side of the delivery room – which was also the office, and the place where staff got changed, put their bags and washed their hands in a bucket. There is no running water in the Makeni Government Hospital.<\/p>\n

“The second twin, a boy, born by breech, died during birth.”<\/p>\n

Twins are more prevalent, but not always seen as a joy in the way they are in the developed world, she says.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes a weaker twin does not survive beyond a few weeks, if that long. Many twins die at birth or one does not survive the birth.”<\/p>\n