Midwives to travel to Nepal to train health staff

A midwife who will be travelling to Nepal to train healthcare staff says she is hoping to learn more about the country's culture around childbirth.

Becky Millar will be among staff from educational firm The Real Birth Company, in Hereford, who will fly out to the south Asian country on Wednesday.

She said the aim of the project was to help "empower" women through their pregnancy so they feel able to make decisions to improve birthing outcomes.

"It's fascinating, birth traditions in different cultures and different countries," Millar told BBC Hereford and Worcester.

"While physiologically birth is exactly the same, the traditions and cultural aspects of birth are really, really interesting."

The company was invited to send over a team after they were contacted by the country's midwives association.

They will be based in the capital Kathmandu to provide birth and anti-natal education, similar to training undertaken by NHS staff.

"Birth is birth, no matter what country you're in," Millar added. "Women and families approaching birth have the same choices and decisions to make."

But she said healthcare in Nepal was "a very different system" to the UK and was something she was going to be learning about.

"We've worked to adjust the programme to fit their culture and what actually happens in the country," she said.

"We're training midwives in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, where birth is quite medicalised and hospital-based.

"But of course, out in the rural communities, it's entirely different."

Millar said the aim was for the trained staff in Nepal to pass on what they have learned to their colleagues, to ensure the project was "sustainable".

The UK nurses were also hoping to learn as much as they teach during the three-week trip, she added.

"We're hoping to pick up as much knowledge as we're taking over."

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