An alternative to unattended delivery--a training programme for village midwives in Papua New Guinea

Certain linguistic groups in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea are unique in that there is no cultural role for a traditional birth attendant and, therefore, women deliver alone unattended. A programme to train village women as midwives was begun at Nipa Health Centre im 1981 and later expanded to a province-wide scope in 1986. Thirty-two Angal Heneng village midwives were trained during the period 1981-1989. Women of this language group have traditionally given birth alone. By 1989 the Angal Heneng village midwives had supervised 623 deliveries while 24 of them were still practicing. Well accepted in the community, they attended 11% of all births in 1989. Their efforts contributed to infant and perinatal mortality rates that were lower among the Angal Heneng than those of the neighbouring language group.