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Midwife "Baby" Caring for Mothers and Children
Of the 200 women bent painstakingly over delicate Japanese doll heads at First Cebu Artcraft Corporation, most grew up in large families, and many were on the way to producing another overly-large generation of children. But in 1997, midwife Nazarina "Baby" Daria, looking for a catalyst for her newly-opened Well-Family Midwife Clinic, recognized that a factory so dependent on women workers could reap huge benefits from her family planning and maternal health services.
In a gutsy business move, Baby approached the owners with a proposal to integrate her services into the existing company health plan. For five months, Baby worked in the nurse's office of Cebu Artcraft, performing pap smears and dispensing pills, condoms, and other contraceptives. Even more importantly, she held candid lunchtime workshops on how to discuss family planning with spouses, spousal sexual relations during pregnancy, and other issues. These workshops often ran overtime, Baby related, because women were so eager to discuss openly their long-festering questions. Baby educated her customers about options ranging from bilateral tubal ligation to natural family planning, and encourages spouses to come for joint counseling.
Now, seven years later, Baby's devoted customers visit her at her full-time clinic just a few minutes down the road from the factory, where she delivers babies and provides pre- and post-natal care. After her initial five months at Cebu Artcraft, the workers recognized that Baby gave them care that they couldn't get at government or private clinics. Her services are affordable and she accommodates delayed payments, but the clincher is Baby's relationships with her customers: "We are very happy with Baby because she is so gentle and caring," one woman said. The workers' actions corroborate their words: they encourage friends and family members to visit Baby's clinic to improve their health and lives.
Over 80% of the women at Cebu Artcraft visit Baby for their yearly pap smears, and she estimates that about 45 have had IUD (intrauterine device) insertions, 40 use oral contraceptives, and 8-10 regularly have DMPA (depo-medroxyprogesterone acetate) injections. In addition, she has referred about five workers to doctors to have a bilateral tubal ligation (BTL) procedure, and 20 of the 30 male workers regularly visit the clinic to buy condoms. Most of these men and women are devout Catholics, but their faith and family planning practices do not conflict. One woman, reflecting the general sentiment of the workers, said, "What I am doing is good for me and my family, so I know it is the right thing." Use of the varied contraceptives Baby offers has reduced the number of women who take maternity leave from about 6 to 2 women per month, and mothers report being able to better care for their smaller families. Other women, who should not have children because of health problems like asthma and iodine deficiencies, cite contraceptives as a godsend.
Baby still offers counseling and education about reproductive health options, and especially tries to reach out young and unmarried women, who are often unable to support children. By convincing young couples to space out their births and have only two or three children, Baby is helping correct a national trend of having many babies as quickly as possible - a pattern that makes life tougher for both children and parents. It is a relief, workers said, to be able to focus on a newborn baby without worrying about the one on the way. Mylene, a 28-year old woman with a young child, plans to delay her next child for seven years, and rejoices in the ability an IUD gives her to plan her family.
The factory owners are pleased with their investment in family planning, since now workers take less time off for maternity leave and childcare. With fewer children, greater productivity, and greater control over their lives and families, the women benefit, too. And Baby, who used to pass her time sweeping her clinic over and over again because she had no customers, now makes 60,000 or 70,000 pesos per month - enough to send her two children to private universities. Nonetheless, her generous income is less important to her than the positive difference she is making in the lives of so many children and parents. Just one of a couple hundreds of midwives that USAID and its NGO partners have supported, Baby is helping to combat the overpopulation that strains the economy, the environment, and Filipino families.
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