Midwifery Today Community

Dear Midwive Friends, 

My name is Laxmi Tamang from Nepal. I'm one of the founding member of the first and only nurse-midwives led independent birthing centre in Nepal and the Midwifery Society of Nepal, established in 2007 and 2010 respectively.

We are struggling to sustain our birthing centre because of the financial constraint that we are facing. We are not a donor funded. We have established our centre as a social enterprise contributing US $ 1333 individually by each of 11 founder members to set up and run the centre. From the very beginning we have very good cooperation and collaboration with the government of Nepal. Government supply us family planning devices, vaccines and we also have signed Memorandum of Understanding with them to provide free maternity care to women who come to give birth in our centre. Therefore, we provide free of cost maternity care to all women who deliver in our centre. We provide whole range of sexual and reproductive health services to urban poor families. These include family planning, antenatal care, delivery, postnatal care, safe abortion care, immunisation, STI treatment and management, etc.

In Nepal, so far we know two birthing centres established by two big hospitals, namely Patan Hospital and Stupa Community Hospital have been closed down due to number of reasons and we don't want to add up with this stories.

Therefore, we are seeking help from you all to make our effort sustainable to help women to give birth as per their choices and empower and build confident of nurses to work independently. In Nepal, we don't have a midwife so nurses provide maternity care including others. 

I would appreciate if you could help us volunteering your time if you are travelling to Nepal.

Look forward to getting your support.

Best regards

Nasmaste Laxmi Tamang,

I am not a midwife yet, but if  if there is something for someone who is not a midwife to do at your birth center, I am very interested in volunteering this fall. I have trained as a doula and plan to apply to midwifery school when I return to the states. 

Yes, that is very true. However, in Nepal we need more birth centre, especially in rural areas to ensure access to maternity services to laboring women as well as to empower and build confident of nurses (since we don't have a separate cadre of midwife in Nepal) to work independently. The video film "Birth in Nepal" illustrates this succinctly. To learn more Birth in Nepal at http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2010/05/20105372154435803.html.

Hi, lineline

I am in Kathmandu and I am studying at Birth Arts to be a doula. I am also thinking to become a midwife but not sure if it's gonna work :). 

I know Laxmi, know the birth center and another lady who is responsible for it and I am thinking about doing my 5 accreditation deliveries there, during this fall. If you want, when you are in Kathmandu, get in touch.  We can connect with midwives who are in charge of the center and see if/how we could help. 

Blessings

Natasha, kolnata@gmail.com

Laxmi, I just started watching the documentary, it's all so very sad :(

 Natasha,

Hope you and your kids are well. Thanks for being in touch with Caroline Mellor (her name is not lineline). You can reach to her at line.mellor@gmail.com. She is right now at Pokhara and on the process of extending her visa. You might be interested to watch the video titled