Dying in Childbirth

Where Have All the Mothers Gone? Dr. Jean Chamberlain Froese. Belleville, Ont.: Epic Press, 2004.

Dr. Chamberlain Froese is a Canadian obstetrician/ gynecologist who has worked in various African, South American and Middle Eastern countries. Her life’s work is to help reduce deaths of women in childbirth through proper care and medical intervention. The book raises awareness of the value of women for the health of their families and communities, as well as ways childbirth can become less risky with the help of people from developed nations.

The book begins with appalling statistics – 1600 women a day die from complications in pregnancy and childbirth, 90% of them in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. But Dr. Chamberlain Froese’s focus is not on paralyzing numbers, but on telling the stories of individual women. Complications not mentioned in the popular pregnancy tome What to Expect When You’re Expecting are routine and life-threatening in developing nations. Remoteness from medical help presents challenges for healthy delivery, as do diseases and wars. The story that stuck in my mind was of a village midwife who strapped a dying woman on the back of a motorbike and rode through rebel fighting for two-and-a-half hours in a vain attempt to save the life of the child and mother.

Dr. Chamberlain Froese couples the overwhelming sense of tragedy with the lesson God taught her: “Your hands are my hands. Your voice is my voice. Your presence is my presence. My hands have been stroking her painful back and my voice has been calming her soul.” Not all of the stories end happily but there are beautiful stories of healthy children born in difficult circumstances and of the difference that simple medical supplies and trained attendants can make. Bible verses, quotes about motherhood and her own reactions are woven through the stories of the women whose births she recounts.

This book demands a response from those of us for whom maternal and infant health is a matter of routine. Among many options readers are offered at the end is support of the Save the Mothers program, which Dr. Chamberlain Froese directs.

Susan Fish is a freelance writer from Waterloo, Ont.