"A Voice for Healthy Family" -NAMHHR and SOMI

NAMHHR was invited as special guest in the 2nd State Conference organised by Society of Midwives India (SOMI) West  Bengal Chapter   on  14th - 15th March 2015 in Kolkata. NAMHHR Member Devika Biswas attended this meeting.  She mentioned that NAMHHR was strongly commitment to using strong rights based strategies to promote maternal health rights of marginalized women through collection of evidence of rights violation and advocacy with stakeholders. She mentioned that NAMHHR was eager to establish a dialogue between the nurses/ANMs and obstetricians.  

NAMHHR recognized that ANMs and nurse-midwives were several human rights violations themselves including difficult working conditions,  lack of role-clarity & gendered systems of hierarchy in the overall health workforce. She stressed that there was a need to advocating for improvements, and a need of joint action to bring more 'rights-based approaches' to caring for women. 

A women-centred approach will need some reforms in childbirth practice, such as given below, and she persuade the SOMI group to join NAMHHR in trying to get these:

·         Ending labour-room violence and abuse, 
·         Birth companions for women, 
·         Choice of position for the labouring woman, 
·         Privacy during childbirth, 
·         Use of only Evidence-based practices (no need for pubic shaving, for routine enema, for routine episiotomy cuts, for oxytocin injections/IV drip etc) and so on

The meeting was attended by 400 participants and the technical sessions were related to maternal health and child health.