At least 5 of the women coming to our schools are pregnant. And they are among some of the keenest students in our classes. I really admire their courage and dedication to battle all the household chores, their morning sickness and back pains, needs of their other children and some even have some less than optimal domestic situations at home. Yet they all come eagerly with finished home works. I asked one of them if it was easy with everything going and she laughed and said absolutely not. She said she never really had any chance to receive education before and now when she has this opportunity she will not let this one go. One of the students is approaching her due date soon and her teacher tells me that she is so keen to learn everything as soon as possible as soon she would not have enough time to come here. I told her that we can adjust her in the following session if she would be willing to attend then.
Most of the pregnant women in Sikanderabad choose traditional midwives and give birth at home only. These midwives are not trained and have just began doing what they saw the elder midwives do. Because of Ziauddin PHC clinics a lot of women have began coming in for antenatal visits and they are all advised for regular ultrasounds and prescribed folate and iron tablets. Over the last few months only we heard that the two pregnant women who went to local midwives died during child birth and even three other babies saw the same fate. It was just such a big shock for us and now all pregnant women who are coming to PHC are insisted upon to go to a tertiary hospital for child birth.
Our five pregnant students were specially counselled to seek proper medical care. Shehla Baji took them herself to get all their blood tests done and then she had their name registered in the OB/GYN wards so that when the time comes, they deliver in the hospital. Shehla Baji registered them through the Edhi foundation which is the largest NGO in the country and they have received confirmation that all their child birth expenses would be borne by the NGO. This is a great news and such a relief for us that our students would be looked after properly when the time comes and the cost would not be a burden on them. We also conducted awareness sessions for all of them and we instructed them to carry the message to all the other women they know so that no one has to see the same fate as those unfortunate women who went to the untrained midwives.
We are very hopeful that our pregnant students in the future would be equipped to educate their own children when they are older and help them in their homework and encourage them to study more and build better lives for them.
By Zainab Faiza
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