Obstetrics in Africa

Midwife and gynecologist help in hospital in Ghana

Gynecologist Nadja Taumberger (left) and midwife Eva Schindler-Lausecker at the Holy Family Hospital(Bild: Schindler-Lausecker)

Sunday is "Day of the Midwife". Two Styrian midwives and a Carinthian gynecologist were on a very special mission in Africa: they trained the staff at the Holy Family Hospital Techiman in northern Ghana. 4,500 babies are born there every year. Many things are very different there than here in Austria.

When you think of births in Austria and the western world, you think of women screaming in pain. "It's very quiet there," says Eva Schindler-Lausecker, a midwife from Graz, thinking back to her ten-day assignment in Techiman, Ghana. "You can't hear a sound, even though there are no painkillers." Why is that? "People go into a birth with a different expectation. They are used to more pain," says gynecologist Nadja Taumberger.