How Two Canadian Doctors Teach Safe Birthing on a 9100ft High Hilltop

By Josephine De Freitas

Students role playing a scene of a mother who’s water just broke, calling the midwife and mother-in-law to attention, may not exactly sound like the conventional classroom for health studies.

17 years and counting, Safe Motherhood Guatemala, a project of Rose Charities continues to provide hands-on training for local Mayan traditional birth attendants (comadronas), paramedics, and other curious students on safe, at home, birthing techniques. Despite the lack of learning tools available locally in the community, Safe Motherhood was able to provide the materials needed for successful hands on training for all their students. Safe Motherhood’s ability to bring a dynamic and engaging teaching method to such remote communities would not have been possible without the donations from the wonderful people in Salmon Arm and around BC, Canada.

The “pregnant belly” model, for instance, is used to teach comadronas how to determine the position of the baby using their hands. Knowing the position of the baby in the uterus is crucial to assess whether the mother can safely give birth at home or is in need of special assistance at a hospital. It is important that Safe Motherhood emphasises hands on training, as it is not practised enough in the region.

A donation of just 5 dollars will help provide comadronas with a well-illustrated manual. A donation of 25 dollars will provide comadronas with a complete kit of supplies as part of their graduation ceremony. Even small donations matter and we would appreciate your support.