Midwives: Silent heroes in our midst

People hear of the midwife vocation, but most of them may not understand what this profession is all about. Midwife comes from the old English words "mit wif," which literally means "with woman."

As defined by A Handbook for Practicing Midwives of Dr. Alejandro San Pedro, FPOGS, midwives are frontline health workers. They are caregivers and, at the same time, health teachers, especially for hard-to-reach communities.

Foremost among their tasks is to provide care to pregnant women and attend to them during childbirth.

Midwives are not strangers to adversity. However, a few devoted midwives choose to stay while others seek lucrative opportunities abroad to stem the economic tide.

Two of such midwives are Carolina Millan of Makati City and Leonila Juan of Valenzuela. For these two, there is nothing more fulfilling than serving their respective communities.

Millan refers to her work as a "calling." She always wanted to become a midwife ever since she was a young girl. Her dreams involved having her own lying-in clinic.

She spent five years in Libya to save enough money to fulfill that dream, working as staff midwife and later as midwife-in-charge. Today, she manages and continues her professional practice in her own Well-Family Midwife Clinic in Barangay Rizal, Makati City.

Perhaps one of her most challenging experience was when a patient had a cord prolapse (baby’s cord falling out of the mother’s womb). The lives of the mother and her baby were literally in Millan’s hands as she kept her hands inside the woman to keep the baby’s cord compressed while she brought the mother to the hospital.

Occurrences like these never make her falter in her duties. In fact, her initiative to include newborn screening in her service package has earned her the first-ever international award accorded to a Filipino midwife – the Save the Children Award for Midwives on Newborn Health at Community Level.

Juan, on the other hand, never thought she would spend 34 years of her life serving her community as a midwife. She had wanted to become a journalist, but lack of funds forced her to take the fastest course toward a professional career – midwifery. Today, she does not harbor a tinge of regret for making that decision.

In the course of her duty, she experienced a mix of amusing and anxious situations with patients and their families. There was a time when she was cursed by a patient right after her delivery. At another time, a patient she was attending to had a cervical tear which caused massive bleeding.

In both instances, her calmness and composure saved her patients. Perhaps it was her private time with her other passion – writing – that helps her release her tension.

Juan never married. Now that she’s 60 years old, she can only be thankful for having a venerable career that allows her to help her community. There are more Juans and Millans out there, tucked within hard-to-reach barangays. One can only imagine how they manage during emergencies, but they can do miracles.

Last October was an auspicious time to thank these silent heroes of public healthcare, as the nation celebrated Midwifery Week. Private institutions like Wyeth are aware of the kind of impact that midwives have in society. They have exemplified their "tibay" as midwives in handling challenges, demonstrating "tibay ng katawan" by remaining to be dedicated in their vocation to provide health service even in remote areas, and "tibay ng pagkatao" by showing genuine concern toward their community.