This week we found three articles in the press talking about traditional birth attendants, as this topic is very close to our core discussions here at health service delivery, we found it useful to share it with you. First of all there is an editorial in BMJ arguing that traditional birth attendants are an effective resource at least when they are adequately trained and not to replace skilled delivery professionals. In the Guardian, Sarah Bossley reflects on the policy by Sierra Leone to ban traditional attendants and puts it in perspective with a real story of a women who couldn’t get to the nearest hospital and despite the ban has been helped by a TBA. Finally this BMC comes up with quantitative data showing that if we believe current trends, the number of women delivering without skilled birth attendants will still be very high in 20 years from now. So we better take this reality into consideration even if we all agree that in a perfect world every women should have the right to have a skilled birth attendant at her sides when delivering.
