Did you see the Midwife in Liberia on TV last night?

[maltesers]

If you did it makes you think .
The delivery unit was so slummy and basic.
No epidurals there, no nothing tbh !
No sheets on the beds just plastic mattresses to lie on. No clean white towels , no pillows. !!
All a bit of an eye opener and the rate of still births in West Africa around there was quite high compared to Britain.
They seemed to have about 7 women in Labour to 2 midwives...
I am glad I dont live there !!

It was one of the most distressing things I have ever watched. The utter lack of compassion and the matter-of-factness regarding abortions/stillbirths/normal births all happening in the same room was mind-blowing.

Its so sad. . .I guess they just dont have the facilities due to lack of money. I was shocked at the way one midwife picked up the newborn by one ankle!!
Also there are so many people that are so uneducated, and penniless with no apparent support from partners/husbands.

I found the programme both utterly tragic and humbling.

We in the UK don't realise how easy we have it - but we still continually moan.

I think these midwifes do an amazing job in terrible circumstances. I believe their 'lack of compassion' as some see it is a more a stoic view on life - they are much more in touch with death because they see it and deal with it every day.

As as mum of two children - I feel very lucky that I was privilleged enough to have pain relief in both my births - these poor women don't even have a paracetamol.

Heartbreaking.

Very distressing

One of the things I most hated George Bush for was removing American funding from family planning clinics in Africa which offered abortion services. I was so happy when one of the first things Barack Obama did was to restore funding to these clinics.

I saw the last half an hour, the lady trying to give away her children to the british midwife was heartbreaking, and the lady who died after putting the 'leaf of death' in her cervix, it is just awful what these women go through.

The midwife that went there was brave and didnt quite know what to expect....I certainly didnt think she would see natural childbirth in a wonderful way....I suspected she would witness poor sanitation, poor facilities and poor suffering females with no pain relief.
Yes, the lady who died from doing her own abortion was a tragic situation...

I saw it. I warned my bf it would make me cry, he wanted to watch it anyway. I cried.

It bothered me a bit when the midwife said at the end that she is now a bit resentful of women here who ask for epidurals, because she's seen how the women in Liberia did without. Sounded a little bit like the beginnings of a dangerous attitude to me. I hope it wasn't, because she seemed nice.

I think the midwife was saying that she found the women back here, who arrogantly, demanded rudely, for an epidural were not right to do so.
I dont think she meant she simply resented women here asking for them.

Many women in labour forget their manners! I agree with you, btw. Even in labour I was polite and grateful, but you'd get shouted down on a One Born Every Minute thread for saying someone was rude when they asked for pain relief

I thought it was sad,the woman with the stillborn baby,was watching a new mum have live baby,very sad.The way she delievered a stillborn breech baby,with no pain relief,and then thankd the nurses afterwards.