Beating about the bush: practical lessons in appropriate maternity care from a Central African context
Sally Stockley

In order to learn how best to serve the needs of any particular ethnic or cultural group, it is necessary above all to listen to the people belonging to that group. In the case of maternity care, in Central Africa at least, this entails listening to women, their extended families, and the traditional midwives or other healers local to the area, as well as to official health policy makers, health care workers including 'modern trained' midwives, and those who devise curricula amongst others. Needless to say, it is not possible to provide appropriate maternity care without also understanding as much as possible about the local environment, such as geography, food, infrastructure, economic activity, as well as language, customs, ways of thought and ways of being.

This short talk describes some of Sally's own experiences in attempting the above, and the project which she finds herself involved in setting up (all the other participants are Ugandan). In this way, questions will be raised about whether the World Health Organization, and other groups involved in the global Safe Motherhood Initiative or similar, are approaching the problem of reducing maternal mortality in the most appropriate way.