Amazon Midwives Crucial Amid Drought: Traditional Care in Remote Brazil

The Vital Role of Midwives in Amazonas

• 🤰 Tabita Dos Santos Morice is one of hundreds of midwives serving remote villages in Brazil's Amazonas region, delivering babies in challenging conditions.
• 💧 Record-breaking drought has parched rivers, making journeys to hospitals perilous and increasing the importance of traditional midwifery.

Generational Knowledge and Practice

• 👵🏽 Midwifery knowledge is passed down through generations, with Tabita learning from her family and now teaching her own daughter.
• 👶 Tabita has guided over 180 babies into the world, embodying the role of an "umbilical mother."
• 🥣 Traditional practices, like preparing a comforting broth from manioc flour and using shredded manioc to ease swelling, are still employed.

Challenges Posed by Drought and Modern Medicine

• ⏳ Drought has made river travel to hospitals significantly longer, sometimes taking over a day instead of 4 hours, forcing women like Meen Melo to return home from planned hospital births.
• 🏥 The local government advises women to travel to cities for births due to drought, but affordability is a major barrier.
• 📊 Over 1 in 15 women in Amazonas give birth outside hospitals, a rate four times the national average, with higher maternal mortality in the region.

Support and Recognition for Midwives

• 🆘 Health officials acknowledge the critical role of midwives, stating that women don't die in childbirth where traditional midwives are present.
• 💰 However, the government does not pay midwives unless they complete formal training, and most earn less than minimum wage, often relying on aid.
• 📉 Many midwives volunteer their services, as families often cannot afford to pay.

The Future of Midwifery

• 🧑‍ Waning interest from younger generations means fewer women are choosing midwifery, leaving some communities without any practitioners.
• ✨ Despite these challenges, midwives offer a style of care often absent in clinical settings, as demonstrated by Tabita's support for Meen during her labor and delivery.