The country has the highest maternal death rate in the Americas. But there’s a new solution: putting care in the hands of midwives
Sylvie Delice was born on a hot, slow March afternoon in a clinic in Marigot, a coastal town in south Haiti. The labour was seven hours; her mother, Natalie, 24, a seamstress, was stoic throughout, helped by two midwives in pale pink scrubs. Sylvie arrived strong and healthy, and was named after her mother’s cousin. Natalie recovered well and went home the next day. There was nothing unusual about Sylvie’s birth – yet it was far from typical.
Haiti has the highest maternal mortality rate in the Americas; higher than much of Africa, including Sudan and Rwanda. According to the most recent figures available, Haitian women have a one in 280 chance of dying due to pregnancy or childbirth – a death rate, relative to the country’s population, 40 times greater than the UK, 26 times more than the US and almost on a par with Afghanistan. And while the neonatal mortality rate has dropped from a high of 82.9 deaths per 1,000 births in 1967 to 28.3 in 2017, 3.1% of newborns die within a month, according to the Haitian ministry of health.
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