Congo Kinshasa: Giving birth in Basankusu

A new baby is born - Giving birth in the Congo - by Annaïg Louboutin.

As every morning, Mamá Julie leaves her home in search of the daily food for her family. But there is a difference: she is heavily pregnant. Mamá Julie is 34 years old and expects her fifth child. She goes on foot, a basket on her back, walking 13 km looking for fish. On the way back she gets contractions and her waters break. Instead of stopping at Bonkita, the nearest parish, and giving birth there, she decides to continue her walk right to Basankusu, praying to the Lord that nothing serious will happen. In her mind she can‟t give birth elsewhere but at home. She does not like to be surrounded by unknown people and on top of that, it would be too expensive for her husband. No, without a doubt, God will help her to reach home. God does not sleep and Mamá Julie finally reaches her house at sunset, with her basket filled with food on her back, and with the onset of labour well advanced.

Children collecting firewood with their granddmother
(Ngombe tribe)

She has hardly arrived when she lies down on the muddy ground which is barely covered by a home-made woven mat. With the help of her husband, who pushes on her belly (he‟s getting quite experienced; it is the fifth child his wife has brought into the world in these elementary conditions) she tries to give birth.

Within a few hours‟ time, in the rain and in the almost total obscurity of the African night,

Mamá Julie and her husband manage to deliver a big baby of 5 kg without a caesarean section. The baby seems to be fine; it cries aloud. It is about 11 o‟clock in the evening. But the afterbirth does not want to appear. The husband continues to press on his wife‟s belly for a long time; but the placenta is too high up.

Women retourning from their vegetable gardens in the forest,
carrying vegetables including cassava root and cassava leaves, and firewood

Powerless as he is, he decides to appeal to his neighbour‟s wife to rid her of the afterbirth. This after having asked the help of the nearest nurse, who, a few hours previously, had answered that the husband should bring his pregnant wife along to his house, on the back of a bike, if he wanted any help at the delivery. In an effort to get rid of the placenta Mamá Julie, just having had her baby, has the bright idea of blowing into a horn. The neighbour‟s wife rubs her belly continuously whilst imploring God to come and assist them. After half an hour or so, their fervent prayer is answered: the afterbirth comes out. In the traditional African context it is very important to recuperate the placenta. It‟s buried in the house next to the afterbirths of the previous babies. It is a way of perpetuating the eternal cycle of life and death by returning to mother earth and the ancestors the envelope that contained the embryo.

After this digression, let us return to the delivery. Now they need to cut the umbilical cord that still connects the naked baby to its mother, though more than two hours have passed.

A woman selling locally pressed palm oil in a beer-bottle

Mamá Julie asks her husband to get the razor blade she has hidden under the mattress. „You know that‟s the blade I used to cut Félicité‟s hair and Gidéon‟s nails.‟ When the neighbour‟s wife hears this, she proposes to get a clean blade and so avoid infections. The umbilical cord is cut and everybody goes home after a night full of tensions and emotions. The following day, like any day, Mamá Julie goes to the spring to fetch water, before she prepares cassava leaves. That‟s life!

You just followed, nearly live, the nocturnal, natural and nearly solitary birth of Mamá Julie's fifth child. The baby is now two weeks old and is fine, like its mother, who has not suffered any serious tearing and whose bruises on her belly have already disappeared.

I do not know whether God exists, but could I even doubt it in a case like this? Do you think that.

Mamá Julie is an exception? You are right to say that unfortunately many women give birth in the old way, on the ground, without any medical assistance, the difference in Mamá Julie‟s case was that she had fallen out with her mother and her siblings, and that, normally, women in a similar situation are surrounded by other women who advise and encourage them throughout their delivery.

Since the departures of the Doctors without Borders, our situation has deteriorated considerably. From 70 FC for the complete medical care of the mother and child at the hospital, the costs of a delivery have risen to 15,000 FC without any warranty of success. Just for the last few months it seems seven women and their babies did not survive a caesarean operation at our hospital.

I leave you wondering about the wonderful adventure of giving life, wonderful only for a relatively small number of women on our planet in 2011. It‟s often their faith that pulls them through.

Annaïg Louboutin - author of this article

Annaïg Louboutin.