Disaster-Zone Midwives

Photographs & Text by Dana Romanoff

After Typhoon Haiyan, a free clinic provides needed aid to pregnant women

By Dana Romanoff

Nearly 300,000 women die worldwide each year from complications during pregnancy or childbirth, 99 percent of them in developing countries. They die because there is no medical care for them, or it is too expensive. The United Nations has declared better maternal health as one of its Millennium Development Goals. As the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has put it, “In much of the world, the most dangerous thing a woman can do is become pregnant.”

Robin Lim is working to change these conditions. Ms. Lim is an internationally recognized midwife serving the poor and medically disenfranchised and committed to changing the world one gentle birth at a time. Ms. Lim has a non-profit clinic and education center in Indonesia (Bumi Sehat Foundation International) and has worked in disaster zones around the world. Ms. Lim was on the ground shortly after Typhoon Haiyan (aka Yolanda), the largest storm to ever hit landfall, devastated the central Philippine Islands with over 235 kmh winds and ocean surges as high as 15 meters, claiming the lives of at least 8,000 people and destroying the homes of over 16 million people.

Months after the storm the disaster is not over. Millions of women and girls of reproductive age are still in need of urgent care and protection. An estimated 230,000 pregnant women live in affected areas, while over 800 women, often malnourished and suffering dehydration, high blood pressure, extreme trauma, inadequate shelter and lack of transportation give birth every day. There is limited or no access to emergency obstetric care. While the Philippine Rural and Municipal Health Centers are rebuilding they are crowded with the sick and injured, charge for maternity services and many maternity patients express not having a good experience there. The Catholic Church, which has a stronghold in the country, is adamantly against any form of contraception other than “natural methods” or abstinence. The Church has stalled the Reproductive Health Bill which would fund access to contraceptives for the nation’s poorest women.

Under a canvas tent, in the skeleton of a destroyed elementary school, Bumi Sehat Foundation International and WADAH Foundation came together under the leadership of Robin Lim to create Bumi Wadah birthing clinic in the township of Dulag, outside of Tacloban City in the Visayas. At this time it is the only clean, free, 24 hour maternity service. Laboring mothers travel from villages often hours away. Ms. Lim, along with local Filipina midwives and a rotation of foreign midwives, offer free prenatal care, birthing services and medical aid, delivering over 100 babies a month, without electricity or running water.

“The structure falls apart in a country after a disaster but women are still having babies and doing so while homeless, no shelter, hungry and no clean water. . . No other group of midwives are dealing with this many deliveries in a disaster zone. This is the biggest disaster in history and Philippines is unique because so many babies are born. This center is the eye of the storm” says Lim.

At Bumi Wadah they call Robin Lim “Lola” which means grandmother. Ms. Lim believes that birth keepers are the earth keepers and that by caring for the babies at birth, midwives are building peace: one mother, one child, one family at a time. She practices gentle birth, delayed cord cutting and immediate mother- baby contact. She believes babies that come into the world without trauma have the ability to fully love and trust and not do as much harm to others or the earth.

I spent ten days at Bumi Wadah and witnessed astounding juxtapositions: birth and death; disaster and joy. There are so many layers to what I saw: the continuing devastation of the storm on some of the poorest of the poor, what it means to live in a country where the Catholic church blocks contraception, and the need for a different, gentle approach to birth. But what surprised and affected me most was witnessing how, despite the harsh conditions, birth can be such an empowering and ennobling event. In the middle of a disaster zone, in a hot, tented delivery room where babies are born to women who survived the largest storm to make landfall in Philippine history, I saw more compassion, empowerment and beauty than ever before.

Donations to the Bumi Sehat Foundation can be made via its website.