Birthwork Training in Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang province is situated in the north of Laos where it is mountainous and populated with a great number of diverse ethnicities. Most villagers live at subsistence level.

Access to health care at the nearest village clinic or district hospital is often limited and sometimes impossible, due to weather conditions, lack of transport, fear of safety on the journey, or lack of money. Sometimes there are prohibitive cultural beliefs or the fear of being treated unkindly and without privacy. When traditional birth attendants, midwives or healthworkers from a particular village or clinic feel unsure about a situation in birth, they will transfer women on to the district or provincial hospital. Ambulance services are rare, and women are transported either on a motorbike or in a car procured at great expense. Most village clinics and many district hospitals are gravely under-resourced, and often there is an unnecessary use of resources and money. Ongoing trainings for midwives and healthworkers is scant. Hence our desire to support women, babies and their families through the both-ways sharing of knowledge, skills and stories - and of course the inclusion of the best healers of all, a lot of song, dance and laughter woven into the mix...

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  Preparing for the event

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  Knowledge applied.

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  Being with women...

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  our future...

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  our birth work training team

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  New Year's blessings

International Midwives' Day

I've been told that today is International Midwives' day and as a midwife, it has given me an opportunity to reflect on my chosen career focus. There have been rocky roads this thing of being "with women" and moments that I wondered what the hell I was doing. And it wasn't the women, or the babies - or their special "others" that left me frustrated, unhappy and at loss of where to go next. It was the society that didn't understand that my role is to be with women: with her every breath, with every tear she shed, with every smile that crossed her face. Cuz she is Holy and carries the Life of the world within her Sacred body. So to all women - all of which are Midwives in their own right - I wish you a Holy day. Embrace and be embraced. Blessed be. LOVE

HBA Conference 2016

ONCE UPON A TIME… THE TRADITION OF STORY TELLING IN BIRTHING

Tere Garnons-Williams, BScN, MMid RM.

The ancient art of story telling has been utilized by women throughout history; women have sat, scrubbed, cooked, cleaned while sharing stories - sometimes over a cuppa; sometimes over a shared task. More recently, we see story shared in books, journals and even more recently electronically, as ebooks or in blogs and social media.

I discovered the power of story in changing our perception of birth in the early 1970s through Ina Mae Gaskin’s “Spiritual Midwifery”, stories that changed how many of us from that era perceived birth. In fact, it started a birthing revolution in the western world – one that continues to this day. Jennifer Worth’s book “Call the Midwife” is another, with stories of birth taking on a life of their own, eventually being aired on international television. These stories changed how women (and culture) perceived birth – and changed the way we birth.

So what is the role of story telling in modern day birthing? Are anecdotal musings of consequence? During pre-conception?; pregnancy?; Labour?; Early parenting?... And to who?: The women?; The midwife?; The broader community? And does the tradition of story telling have some of the necessary tools for supporting optimum birth?

As a Midwife, I consider each story I am told by the women I care for as profound and I listen for clues to discover who this woman is – her perception of herself as a woman, a birthing woman, a mother, a parent, a lover - her strengths and weaknesses. Stories she shares can tell me things about what is happening for her and her unborn – after all, she is the expert of her own experience. And more times than not, her stories give me clues about “stuff” that I may need to consider when caring for her.

I will use real life stories about stories to expand on this topic. And I’ll encourage participants to do the same. After all, I love the stories of women. They can change the world.