We want more midwives to be trained in Family Planning – Delphine Umugwizawase

Delphine Umugwizawase, Quality Improvement Midwife, OB-Gyn, University of Rwanda Training Hospital, Kigali

I have been a midwife for six years. First of all, I am proud to be a midwife because I like babies, I like to save the lives of mothers. My inspiration came when I was a little girl, when I saw someone in the family of my classmate lost their baby. That made me decide to be a midwife to be able to save the most babies and mothers.

At this time part of the maternal mortality rate in Rwanda is due to unsafe abortion for teenage girls. If they could emphasize more education on family planning for those teenagers it may  reduce that high level for young ladies. Also education for midwives, if they continue to educate more midwives that would also be involved in reducing that rate.

For midwives until now normally it’s not a high level education about family planning, but at this time the government is starting to train more midwives in family planning. Still now there’s still a low number of midwives who can manage to help mothers with family planning.

It’s very important that more get training because there need to be more midwives who can help mothers about family planning. It’s better to have more education, more training, for midwives.

Here at CHUK (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali – University of Rwanda Training Hospital, Kigali), we have given long-term family planning for the women who desired it. There are only five midwives who are trained to properly counsel about all the different methods they can give to women, who are educated about them and want a specific method. That’s why we need more midwives to be trained.