Silvia and Shawna with the gifts that Shawna brought for the nurses in one of the hospitals. Thanks again Shawna for all the wonderful support you gave to women in the hospitals.

In December 2014 we were able to deliver gifts of baby clothes to women in the maternity wards of the hospitals in Tegucigalpa, La Ceiba, and Santa Rosa de Copan. It was especially nice this year to have gifts for the nurses as well!

by Zoe Paterson

Just before Christmas this year we organized a doula workshop for nurses of the maternity ward of San Felipe Hospital in the capital, Tegucigalpa. This doula workshop was specifically designed by Dar a Luz for nurses working in Honduran hospitals.

A huge thank you to our wonderful friend Anna who taught the class, and brought with her an enormous amount of much-needed medical equipment, and other supplies. Anna stayed for two weeks (over Christmas!) to support laboring women, and to support the nurses’ new skills. A peanut ball, birth ball, pelvis model and baby model have also been donated to the maternity ward.

The Honduran government often does not have the money to adequately pay nurses, let alone pay for labour support staff. In the public hospitals where Dar a Luz works, family members are not allowed to accompany women in labour into the ward, which makes it all the more important that nurses be given the opportunity to learn a supporting role.

Over the four days of the course Anna taught doula essentials that can be combined with regular nursing care to offer a more rounded medical and emotional experience to labouring women. She was able to teach massage for pain reduction, breathing techniques, positions for easier labour, ways to create trust and connection, and introduced and donated birth balls and peanut balls for the hospital’s use. The nurses were able to practice their new skills immediately with the women in labour at the hospital.

Education makes all the difference here in Honduras, and Sylvia is currently planning another trip to Tegucigalpa, this time for a more in-depth seminar for all the nurses of the maternity ward.

The last three months has been full of activities. Besides the continuing doula/labor support provided by us to the women in public hospitals, there has been seminars  and workshops. We could reach to drop down the episiotomy rate in one of the hospitals from 80% to almost 20%, and we could almost stop, in collaboration with a local gynecologist,the highly used fundus pressure method (60%) in one of the hospitals.

We had several seminars over respected birth in different hospitals. We kept on our work with the midwives, and we hold several childbirth education classes. Thanks to everybody who has been involved to make this happen!

The rainy season is coming soon. In the mountains close to la Ceiba, there are a lot of small communities, which often will be cut off from the next hospital during the rainy season, as the rivers can raise so high and, as there is no bridge, there is no way to cross it.

For this reason often pregnant women close to their due date, or women in labor, get trapped in the mountains, which caused in the last years maternal and newborn death, as the local traditional midwives have become very old, and are often not any longer able to assist with their life long experience. Besides of this they often has not been prepared for emergency situations, as a baby which does not breath after birth or a sudden upcoming hemorrhage of a women.

Midwives ‘parteras’ in Honduras do often not get any formal training.
The tradition of passing the knowledge down to the next generation is almost dying out. Continue reading →