Grandmother And Infant
In rural villages across Afghanistan, childbirth is a dangerous undertaking. Afghanistan has the highest maternal death rate in the world. One Afghan woman dies every 30 minutes from a childbirth-related illness. Women are not permitted to see male doctors for OB/GYN visits, so even where there is a clinic available, often the women cannot visit it to give birth. There must be a female doctor or midwife. This means that most women are forced to deliver at home with no medicines, supplies or know-how.
In the rural villages of Panjshir Province, a family opened up its home to M2M founder Shannon Galpin and became her anchor as she traversed the mountains of the Panjshir. This grandmother lives with the extended family and, as is often the case in home births, was integral in the delivery of her granddaughter.
Her village has a clinic, with one male doctor. Villagers would love to have a midwife work at the clinic, but there are no educated women or girls in the village able to attend midwifery school. And it is difficult to encourage a trained midwife to relocate with her family to this remote mountain community.
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