Rochester Rotarians Share Birthing Techniques in Portugal

Submitted by Sara Przybylski

Jay Eastman, M.D., president of the Rochester Rotary Club, recently attended the Rotary International Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, with his wife and fellow Rotarian, Linda Eastman.  

Rochester Rotary Club is a member club of Rotary International, a worldwide organization of business and professional leaders that provides humanitarian service and encourages high ethical standards in all vocations.

Linda Eastman was invited to serve on a panel at the conference for its Focus on Maternal and Child Health session, where she discussed the midwife training program, Helping Babies Breathe/Childbirth Emergencies, that she and Dr. Eastman implemented two years ago in rural Guatemala.  

Linda Eastman shared her experiences teaching midwifery skills to women who are illiterate and discussed the development of her program and demonstrated how it empowers traditional birth attendants (TBAs) to deliver healthy babies by providing them with urgently needed equipment, supplies and knowledge.

“Knowing that their village midwives have had training and now possess up-to-date equipment, pregnant women feel more confident and less apprehensive as their due date approaches,” Linda Eastman said. “Birth outcomes are improved for moms and babies, and this contributes to the well-being of the entire family and community. This program has been so successful that it will serve as a pilot for scaling up to other parts of the country.”

In addition to the improvement in birth outcomes for the community, the program has provided additional benefits.  By working together, traditionally opposing groups set aside their differences to work for the common good.

“As Rotarians, we promote peace between individuals, using the Four-Way Test as a guide,” Linda Eastman said. “It is extremely satisfying to see former adversaries work on the same team to make their communities stronger and to save lives.”

According to Linda Eastman, the community is not the only group to benefit from the training program.

“Perhaps we trainers experience the most profound changes of all. The deep gratitude shown by the midwives is what keeps us going back.  To witness first-hand the challenges and hardships the birth attendants endure—delivering babies in the dark on dirt floors, walking a mile or more through the jungle in a rainstorm to attend a birth and the helplessness they must feel when they know they are too far from a hospital and the birthing mom will not survive because she is bleeding out— I am filled with respect and awe at the brave, dedicated women who heed the call to help other women in their hour of greatest need.”

Linda Eastman first became involved with maternal care at the global level when Dr. Eastman, a pediatrician, was asked to carry out a needs assessment for a Rotary project in the hinterlands of northwest Guatemala in 2001.

“I never imagined the impact this request would have on my life,” Linda Eastman said. “During the past 12 years that project has evolved to include not only the midwife training program, but a medical clinic, a thriving water project, an early intervention literacy program, a Worms-Be-Gone initiative, a scholarship to send an indigenous village health promoter to nursing school, the Village School Textbook and Library project and a visit from a Guatemalan vocational training team that came to the U.S. to learn about alternative therapies to mental health problems.”

According to Linda Eastman, where there are challenges, there are always solutions.

“We are committed to find those solutions, engaging Rotary to change lives,” Linda Eastman said.