By Leah McLaren
At the Nyarugusu medical dispensary in north-west Tanzania, Eva Paulo, 23, is in her 36th hour of labour. She paces barefoot in circles around the dusty yard behind the delivery room, her narrow back hunched in pain. Apart from her belly she is a slim woman with an angular face, her hair scraped back into rows of tidy plaits. When a contraction grips her, Paulo leans hard into the nearest tree, shuts her eyes and breathes silently as the sweat beads off her forehead.Water Aid: A Matter of Birth and Death
Oct 06 2017
By Water Aid
The first mothers, with their tiny babies barely visible amid swathes of bright cloth, began arriving in the misty morning just after sunrise.Some came on foot. Others hung off the back of piky-piky (motorcycles), traveling up to two hours to reach the Mlali Health Centre, a clinic in rural Mvomero district in Morogoro region, at the foot of the picturesque Uluguru mountains.
By Vario Sérant
Delicate and petite, Nélia is 25 but looks like a teenager. She has already been pregnant three times and has endured more than her share of tragedy.She lives in Pichon, a remote community in Belle-Anse, where the nearest health center is a three-hour walk away. Like most women in Haiti, Nélia gave birth at home.