Digesting first impressions.

Friday, 17.08.2018

Last night there was a big meal at our accommodation, 8 people from 4 different countries sitting at one table, talking, laughing and eating together. There is no loneliness here! Afterwards, we all went to bed and slept more or less well.

Friday was exciting for me. I knew that today would be my first tour in the clinic for me.

Conny, the German midwife whom I had already met, showed me around the rooms and explained the local conditions to me.

I entered the door, a counter, as it is available in many clinics, was recognizable. Behind it there was a door. There were already women lying on the right and left. No closed rooms, no curtains, each woman in her bed - there is nothing more. Bed sheets, food and even materials for childbirth, they have to bring themselves.

On one side, all pregnant women for monitoring or at the beginning of labor, the other side is for the postpartum women and their newborns. They lie facing the counter and are treated as if they were invisible. 2-3 tours per day, the rest of the time they have to cope alone, Conny explains to me. There is no breastfeeding support, no communal changing, etc. Mothers and grandmothers will show them how to do it. The women stay in this 'state' for 24 hours.

In the center behind the counter - behind the door - is the delivery room: or better said directly 4 ... I can't find a word for it ... delivery areas in this room (each about 6-8 sqm)

I was shocked!

It is known that childbirth in Tanzania will be quite different, but I think you have to see it with your own eyes as a midwife to feel that these rooms lack everything that can make a calm and intimate childbirth possible.

In Germany, there is currently a focus on a trusting relationship between midwife and woman, intimacy, individuality, well-being, support from the partner, freedom of movement, freedom of opinion, and yet safe childbirth through the support of CTG devices and assistance from pain medication and the presence of emergency medications.

None of this can be found here, and if there are medications, there are too few...

It's just my first impression, I can't describe the work on site any further yet.

But I feel it will be tough. Completely different! Maybe just not comparable.

And hopefully, despite the circumstances, always end with a happy ending for mother and child.

'You can't buy happiness. It is born.'