In Pangasinan, birthing homes give ‘personalized services’

Midwives used to go on house calls to help women give birth at their homes. Now, they are establishing centers where women in labor can avail themselves of home-like comfort and a clean environment equipped with modern medical facilities.

Fourteen such birthing homes exist in Dagupan City and other towns in Pangasinan, says Villa Payag, 51, one of the midwives who pioneered the project.

A mother herself, Payag says giving birth is a “natural process” and midwives are trained to help women who want to give birth naturally.

“Hospitals are for sick people and pregnancy and birthing are not diseases. Unless there are complications when mothers need medical attention, midwives can efficiently handle birthing. Because we are trained, we know if the mother needs to be taken to a hospital,” she says.

Payag’s birthing home in Bonuan District even renders “personalized services” that no hospital offers.

She serves “malunggay” (Moringa) soup and rice broth to those who have just given birth.

“I have plenty of malunggay trees in my yard. I just boil some leaves with some ginger and seasoning and give them to the mothers. When you just gave birth, a hot soup is very welcome,” she says.

One time, a woman who had just given birth could not sit down by herself because she was so heavy. “I just propped her with pillows and spoon-fed her. She was so happy she cried,” Payag says.

But in most cases, the mothers’ family members are around and bring food for them, especially in “high-end birthing homes,” she says.

‘Unang Yakap’

Payag says that long before the Department of Health implemented the “Unang Yakap” concept, when babies are put on the mother’s chest immediately after birth, “we have been doing that, even when we assist in the houses.”

“The skin-to-skin contact between the mother and baby makes the mother secrete [the hormone] oxytocin, which signals the mother’s body to secrete milk and to contract the uterus,” she says.

Pangasinan has 14 birthing homes—four in Dagupan, four in Mangaldan, three in Binmaley, and one each in Laoac, Pozorrubio and Binalonan.

It was the Population Services Philippines Inc. (PSPI), a nongovernment organization engaged in reproductive health services, that encouraged the midwives to establish birthing homes. Since 2009, some 300 such facilities have already been established with PSPI assistance throughout the country.

Payag says she is one of those who started a birthing home in Mangaldan in 2008. She underwent training from the Private Sector Mobilization for Family Planning (Prism), an organization supported by the US Agency for International Development.

But the venture with four other midwives failed. They then decided to go back to helping women in giving birth at their homes, but this could be dangerous because “houses are not sterile.”

The PSPI gave them a P50,000 aid to refurbish the birthing homes and provided them more training on maternal and child health care, and contraceptive technology.

The midwives have a three-year contract with the PSPI. They submit a weekly report on the number of people they counsel on reproductive health and users of contraceptive methods.

“We also give counseling to couples who want to plan their families. This way, we are helping them to become responsible parents,” Payag says.

A commerce graduate, Payag had trained to be a midwife so she could help Muslim women living near her house in Bonuan.

“I have befriended many Muslim women and they go to me for help about some of their needs. I planned to train to be a social worker but decided the work might be boring. Since there were many women giving birth at home in the Muslim community, I decided to train as a midwife, completing the course in 2001,” she says.

She says being a midwife is a difficult job, as one can be called to help mothers any time of the day.

“But it is a very fulfilling profession. You are helping God in fulfilling a miracle. Every baby born is a miracle and it is a big privilege to help bring babies to the world,” she says.