Banner Del E. Webb nurse teaches safe birthing in Honduras

Living in the United States, some people take safe birthing practices for granted.

But in other parts of the world, women are often on their own with little help beyond their extended families or other villagers to help bring their babies into the world.

With a desire to help women in need, Terry Emrick, an OB nurse in Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center’s The Nesting Place, 14502 W. Meeker Blvd., Sun City West, trekked to Honduras recently to help teach safer birthing practices.

She was joined by Catherine Tiwald, an instructor at the Banner Mesa Boswell School of Nursing and Catherine’s daughter, Caitlyn. The three women stayed in the city of La Esperanza and traveled to remote villages, which were two to three hours away from the city. The villages have no electricity or running water and no hospitals. While some of the villages had midwives (most of whom had no formal training), one had no midwives or medical people at all. The closest hospital was about 1½ hours away by car, but the residents do not own cars, and there is no public transportation, so the pregnant women rely on friends and family to assist during childbirth.

“The most memorable experience for me was the village of El Narango,” said Emrick. “These people were so appreciative of any information we could give them. They had 16 men that came to the training. That is almost unheard of as men in this culture do not participate in birth, and they were eager to learn whatever they could to help their community. The people in this village were farthest from any medical help and many of them walked two- three hours to get to our training.”

With the generosity of BDWMC employees, the PureHeart Christian Fellowship, which sponsored the trip in conjunction with Helping Mothers and Babies, Inc., and donations from Banner Mesa Boswell School of Nursing students and Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center, Emrick collected enough donations to make 300 birthing and midwife kits.

Each birthing kit included one yard of light cotton fabric, a razor blade, two pieces of gauze, soap, one nail stick, one meter square plastic sheet, a baby receiving blanket, a baby gown or T-shirt and umbilical cord tape. The midwife kits included an apron, fetoscope, stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, gloves, medical scissors and a thermometer.

“We also included a text book published in Spanish from Helping Mothers and Babies, Inc., for each of the midwives who could read,” Emrick said.