Return of traditional birth attendants: Covid-19 drives women to old ways of birthing

Expectant women in Baringo County are avoiding health facilities and trooping to traditional birth attendants out of fear of contracting the coronavirus. 

This is despite the county health department’s campaign to assure the women that health facilities are safe.

The trend has been on the rise since last month when the first case of coronavirus was reported in the country.

“I have been receiving an average of three expectant mothers every day,” says Elena Kachike, a traditional birth attendant turned birth companion.

According to Kachike, most of the expectant women go to her to have the position of their unborn babies checked and for advice on a healthy diet. Others seek help with complications associated with pregnancies.

For Kachike, the  rising numbers are worrying. The women ought to be visiting health centres, not her home, she says, but being a mother herself, she perfectly understands them.

“They are scared,” she says.

Kachike says she has tried to discourage the expectant women from going to her due to risks of pregnancy and labour complications, but they keep coming back.

The Standard visited her at her rural home in Ilng’arua, Baringo South Sub-County and found her busy attending to several expectant women.

A number of them had come for traditional herbs to relieve abdominal pain and stop bleeding among other pregnancy related problems.

Jeridah Lalwei, 29, was among those who had come for traditional herbs to stop what she described as acute abdominal pain that she has had for the past two weeks.

This was her second visit. Lalwei, who is five months pregnant and a mother of two, had visited Kachike on April 2, 2020, complaining of acute abdominal pain.

Kachike referred her to Marigat Hospital where she was diagnosed with malaria, according to a medical report.

Even after receiving treatment, she says, she continued experiencing abdominal pain, but is not willing to go back to hospital.

“All I want is the traditional birth attendant to check my pregnancy and give me some traditional herbs,” she says.

A 17-year-old girl was also among those waiting in the queue for Kachike’s services. Although looking pale, the Form One student at a local secondary school told The Standard that she feared going to a health centre.

“What if I contract coronavirus?” she asked.

The birth attendant, however, referred the student, who is seven months pregnant, to Marigat Hospital, saying her condition was too complicated.

At the facility, she was diagnosed with anaemia and acute malaria and referred to Kabarnet Hospital for treatment and blood transfusion.

Winnie Bore, the County Public Health Chief Officer, said the department has been trying its best to demystify myths surrounding coronavirus.

It has also been educating expectant women on the importance of seeking maternal services from health facilities instead of traditional birth attendants.

Dropping numbers

Dr Bore admits that there is a drop in the number of expectant women visiting health facilities because of the fear of coronavirus.

“It is a myth,” she says.

“We discourage mothers from delivering at home or in the hands of traditional birth attendants because of the risks involved,” she adds.

Still, the department acknowledges the important role that traditional birth attendants play, particularly the age-old faith that many expectant women have in them.

To tap on this, the department has been training them to become birth companions-to refer, and in some cases, accompany  expectant women to health facilities.

“We are linking the birth attendants to various health facilities,” says Bore.

But the number of women who prefer the traditional birth attendants to health facilities keeps swelling.

Although even the most experienced traditional birth attendants, like Kachike, acknowledge that home births are fraught with danger, their mother’s instinct cannot let them turn away an expectant woman.  

“At times I lock myself in my house to stop the women from demanding my help, but they keep knocking on my door and even call me when they do not find me at home. I know I do a risky job, but it is on humanitarian grounds,” says Kachike.