Making Deliveries Safer for Moms and Babies

“Menh worked hard to save my baby’s life. I am forever grateful to her.”

Menh hurried Dai down the hill to the local clinic where she helped the 17-year-old mother through labor for three agonizing hours. When the baby girl was eventually born, she wasn’t breathing as the breech position had suffocated her. Menh stayed calm and quickly used the bag-mask ventilation technique to open the baby’s lungs. At around 4 a.m., Dai’s baby girl cried her first breath.

“I was scared to death,” recounted Dai, now six years later. She pulled her daughter, Mai, to her hip. Mai wrapped her arms around her mother. “Menh worked hard to save my baby’s life,” she continued, “so I am forever grateful to her.”

Menh is one of 151 traditional birth attendants (TBAs) educated and trained through the Samaritan’s Purse Safe Motherhood program in Vietnam since 2013. In the country’s remote northern provinces, towering mountains separate many communities from essential medical care. Pregnant women often give birth at home where the risk of complications is higher for themselves and their newborns. However, Menh and the Samaritan’s Purse network of birth attendants throughout the region help save lives by bridging the gap between local health clinics and mothers in need.

“The Samaritan’s Purse project has helped me gain lots of knowledge about how to recognize warning signs in pregnant mothers and how to adapt when things go wrong,” said Menh, a mother herself who grew up in the region and has been a TBA for over 10 years. Beyond medical care, Menh said she learned to care for mothers with “integrity, gratitude, and love” through the Samaritan’s Purse training.

Phu, 22, was quite nervous when she arrived to a Samaritan’s Purse maternal health checkup at her local clinic in Vietnam. Four months pregnant, she had been experiencing severe abdominal pain for weeks. Some in her village had pushed her to rely on traditional medicine and cultural rituals. But Menh, who had been visiting Phu during her pregnancy, encouraged her to go to the clinic.

When Phu arrived at the clinic, Samaritan’s Purse-trained nurses and TBAs guided her through different stations to assess the young mother’s health. They measured her vital signs, conducted an ultrasound of the fetus, and gave her vitamins and nutrients to aid her recovery.

“In the past, there were no TBAs or roads to the clinic; and I heard stories of women giving birth while walking on the mountainside, because they didn’t know how far along they were,” Phu said. “But now I am very thankful to Menh and Samaritan’s Purse for their help. We feel cared for and healthy now that Samaritan’s Purse is here.”

Phu left the clinic with a newfound optimism about her upcoming delivery. She also received a Samaritan’s Purse baby kit stuffed full of health supplies for her and her incoming baby. The kit includes baby clothes, diapers, condensed milk, a blanket, a mosquito net, and essential cooking items for the mother like oil, salt, and fish sauce.

Khuan, another mother, gave birth to her first two children at home with the help of some community members because no trained medical professionals could reach her remote village. Both deliveries were extremely painful, she recounted, and she suffered from heavy postnatal bleeding. “I was scared for my life,” she said.

However, with Menh’s help, Khuan’s third pregnancy and delivery was unlike her previous two.

“The TBA helped me every step of the journey. I felt a lot more at peace,” Khuan said of her third child’s birth. “During my pregnancy, Menh would regularly check up on me. She would ask me if I was having any issues, if I had enough food, or if I could feel the baby kicking. And if there was something wrong, she would help. None of this happened to me during my first pregnancies.”

Even months after her child was born, Khuan came to the same clinic as Phu to keep up on her postpartum health and make sure everything was fine. She, too, left with a baby kit to take home.

“I feel safe,” she said with a smile leaving the clinic.

Created in the Image of God

Thi, 18, and her husband Dua, 20, also felt assurance under Menh’s care. On three separate occasions, they traveled 25 kilometers from their hometown deep in the mountains to attend Samaritan’s Purse maternal checkups. Each time Thi left with more supplies and food to nourish herself and her baby. After the third and final checkup she went home with a rare gift for mothers in Vietnam: a picture of her baby in the womb.

“I am happy and proud,” said Thi while looking at the photo from her ultrasound. “I hope that this baby will be healthy and that my family will have enough to eat and enough clothes to wear.”

Not long after her third checkup, Menh helped Thi give birth to a healthy, 7.5-pound baby girl—another precious soul created in the image of God.

“The most rewarding moment as a birth attendant is when I can help people in need, like saving mothers and ensuring babies are born healthy. It makes me feel happy and fulfilled.”

With our training and support, the Samaritan’s Purse network of birth attendants have reached thousands of isolated pregnant mothers and have helped deliver a whole generation of children.

Pray for our teams as we help in Jesus’ Name and show God’s love to mothers in vulnerable situations in Vietnam and around the world.