The Pink Kit for positive birth: To Hyderabad

Oct 27, 2006

I went to Hyderabad by bus passing through very dry desert, herds of goats and camels. There has been no rain for 6 years except during July of this year that caused severe flooding. Staying water after all these months is still apparent. But that rain didn't change the desert.

Hyderabad used to be known as the City of gardens but the gardens are now gone. I was met and hosted by another Baha’i family. On the way from the petrol station where I left the bus and as we headed to my host family an accident occurred. A father was putting his three children onto his motorcycle when it tipped over on top of the 3 year old boy. We were just driving by as were a few other cars. Every car stopped and all the men rushed out to help the father. Within less then 5 seconds 20 people from the cars were lifting the motorcycle, helping with the frightened daughters, picking up the boy, consoling the father and making certain everything was aright. Fortunately the boy was not hurt. Everyone got back into their car and drove off.

Would people in your country help in that manner? I've never seen this happen in any of the many countries where I've been. Very unique and very touching. This actually goes hand in hand with how people drive ... all over the road, right up the tail pipe in front but very cautiously.

The daughter of my host family, Nadia, had just become a doctor. She was to be my translator. Our first meeting was with a group of Muslim housewives. These women were educated, middle class but not the upper class. They ran a small self-help institution focused on work opportunities for Muslim women. They a vague idea why I was there.

Whenever I give Pink Kit presentations, I always ask people about their cultural or religious preparations for childbirth and how they manage and help in labour.

This group said they focus during pregnancy on how to prevent of miscarriages. They do this by having good nutrition (not defined), not doing too much physical work and going to many doctor’s appointments. Many of the women birth in hospital and believe they should follow the instructions of the doctor and nurses. No one goes to hospital with the women in labour. Some of the women birth at home and a midwife comes. Then the mother or aunt usually attends.

During painful contractions they pray to Allah. They do not teach any type of breathing or relaxation to their daughters. When asked whether women ‘suffer’ in labour they said suffering in labour is the way it's meant to be so that women can bear Life. With that information, I had to ask whether they wanted to learn skills that might assist to reduce the suffering. I explained that I was not meeting with them to tell them their ways or beliefs were wrong.

Having worked with certain other individuals and religious groups there are those who believe 'suffering' is both a necessity, should be embraced and not avoided. Their interest is not to learn how to reduce the suffering but rather how to suffer gracefully. In these situations, the family and I have had to language these skills in a manner that achieves the latter without challenging the concept of the former.

These women did want to reduce the suffering but were skeptical anything could prevent it. They had no concept that having skills so a woman could work with the process of labour pain was possible. Keep in mind these women do no physical hard work as do the village women. In fact, Muslim women rarely leave their homes.

We only had time to cover the 4 types of breath patterns and which types to use in labour so the woman can remain as relaxed as possible. They absolutely loved the skills. Immediately they could see the benefit of passing on the good breath patterns to their daughters and could understand how important it would be for a woman to know these skills when she labours by herself in hospital. They also mentioned they would have to have the doctor's approval of these breathing skills.

We didn’t have time to share the language, touch, body preparation or any of the other skills. They were keen on finding a way to have The Pink Kit translated into Urdu and available for all Pakistan women.

After the talk and when the men joined us, one man said this was the first meeting in which women were given practical skills. He said every other meeting the women were instructed in the Qaran.

Tomorrow (Oct 28) we are headed to a very rural village again about 4 hours from Hyderabad.