Karin Grepin, one of the best global health bloggers in my humble opinion, has written a very personal account of the recent birth of her son. Her reflection on her experience deserves a read, in particular the paragraph below:
I kept asking myself: what if I lived in a poor country, was a poor woman, and knew little about the medicine I was receiving. How would we have fared then?
A few things really struck me about this whole experience. First, I went from having a completely uneventful pregnancy to one with so many issues in a very short time period. In total, I probably had about 12 antenatal care visits – if women in poor countries get antenatal care most get far, far fewer than this – would they get the help they need? Second, would the antenatal care have caught the breech position? A manual evaluation at 34 weeks concluded that my baby had been in the right position, but I realize now that he never was. Most women in developing counties do not have access to the ultrasound technology that I had. Finally, while yes, the c-section was a relatively straight forward operation, I really wondered how such procedures can be delivered in resource poor settings. We hear talk about midwives and other lower skilled professionals providing such services – I had a small army of medical professionals in the room during mine – how feasible is this and is it better than the alternative?
