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Dai Shanti Devi’s dedication to safe motherhood and newborn care has made her one of the most respected elders in Solan district of Himachal, where malnutrition is a major problem,
The path is uneven and slippery. Recent rains have made it difficult to negotiate the muddy track in Nichla Badho village in Jagjit Nagar, Solan district, Himachal Pradesh. But this doesn’t bother Shanti Devi. The 80-year-old skips nimbly over puddles and manoeuvres herself down the steep incline. After all, as a dai, or traditional birth attendant, this is what she has been doing for the past 57 years. Rain or shine, night or day, if there is a distress call from a pregnant woman, or if there is a baby to be delivered, or even if the fears of a first-time mother-to-be need to be soothed, Shanti is sure to be there. Her commitment as a dai in promoting safe motherhood and newborn care by ensuring practices such as early breastfeeding has made her one of the most respected village elders in a state where malnutrition, a problem compounded by delayed weaning, is a major issue. As many as 81 per cent children suffer from mild to moderate malnutrition and 4 per cent suffer from a severe degree of malnutrition. It is no wonder that Shanti, who has delivered more than half the population of her village, including six of her own grandchildren, is a household name. But 71 years ago, when nine-year-old Shanti was married off to a man 28 years her senior, little did she think she would be able to do something so significant and meaningful. Illiterate and unskilled, all she could do were household chores. In fact, when she became pregnant some years after her marriage, Shanti was convinced she was going to die. "No one had told me about how to handle pregnancy. I was frightened. There was no hospital nearby. It was a dai who took care of me like a mother," she remembers. Although her own experience with the dai sparked an interest in the profession, the turning point came a year later when she was able to help her sister’s pregnancy pains with a hot mustard oil massage. Shanti then realised she had the temperament to nurture and care, two important characteristics of a good dai. Thereafter, she began to accompany the local dai on her rounds and soon picked up all the traditional techniques. The first test came when, at 23, she conducted her first independent delivery. "I was nervous as it was my sister’s daughter-in-law. I knew how to induce labour pains by giving hot herbal drinks made by boiling methi (fenugreek seeds), ajwain (carom seeds) and soya. I used a sickle to cut the chord and, after the birth, gave the mother two spoons of diluted brandy," recalls Shanti. She hasn’t looked back since then and has now lost count of the innumerable children she has helped deliver. Though she rarely received more than Rs 10 as fee, and sometimes a set of clothes for these deliveries, Shanti’s enthusiasm hasn’t waned. This was to prove fortunate for Bimla (35), a resident of Nichla Badho village. Families living in villages as far as 35 km away also invite Shanti to deliver children. But one of Shanti’s biggest achievements has been the breaking of caste barriers. Traditionally, upper caste women shy away from calling a dai belonging to a caste lower than theirs. But such is her reputation that women from all castes, including upper caste Rajput families, welcome her. In fact even when the delivered child has died soon after, these families have not blamed Shanti. One of the prime reasons why Shanti is in great demand is because women living in the community are comfortable with her and are confident about her abilities, contends Subhash Mendhapurkar, Director, Society for Social Uplift Through Rural Action (SUTRA). The Jagjit Nagar-based NGO, which works for women’s empowerment, has conducted training programmes for dais. Shanti is an icon here because she has made a big difference to women’s health by using her traditional skills and knowledge, says Mendhapurkar. However, what has won her trust and admiration from pregnant women and health activists is her refusal to succumb to the pressure of revealing the sex of the unborn child. Incidentally, her village is one of the few in the district that hasn’t registered a single case of female foeticide in the last 40 years. This is despite the fact that Solan is one of the districts in Himachal Pradesh where the child sex ratio has declined to 900. According to the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, one Indian woman dies every seven minutes because of pregnancy or childbirth-related complications, and of the half-a-million women who die every year around the world due to maternity-related complications, 70,000 are Indians. In this scenario, women like Shanti are truly indispensable. They make all the difference between life and death. — WFS
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