The number of ethnic pregnant women in Central Highland Gia Lai province having regular medical check-ups at clinics is increasing, but 58 percent of them still give birth at home.

“Local health officials are making a great effort to urge expectant mothers to give birth at clinics or hospitals to reduce fatalities,” Nguyen Truong Tuyet, deputy director of the Gia Lai Health Department, said.

Tuyet said home births were gradually decreasing. Two years ago 70 percent of ethnic pregnant women gave birth at home.

“Many ethnic women in this central highlands province don’t pay attention to their health during pregnancy. Few expectant mothers visited clinics,” she said.

Giving birth at home is still popular among 34 ethnic minority groups in Gia Lai.

“The percentage of deaths occurring during home birth delivery in mountainous regions in Vietnam is high, at 27.5 percent,” Tuyet said.

Many women died of haemorrhage after birth.

Dr Ngo Thi Hong Lam, who has worked in Gia Lai for 10 years, said she and her colleagues were optimistic that an increasing number of ethnic pregnant women in several mountainous villages had visited clinics or hospitals for check-ups.

Medical teams have toured mountainous villages in Gia Lai to talk with ethnic women about the importance of health care during pregnancy and after birth.

Gai Lai was selected by the Ministry of Health in 2007 to receive funding from the European Commission (EC) project to help poor people in five provinces in northern mountainous region and the Central Highlands to access health care.

With EC funding, Gia Lai invested in maternity clinics and hospitals. All 13 villages in K’s Bang district, the largest district in Gia Lai, now have maternity clinics staffed by midwives with professional training.

In the last two years, over 800 pregnant women in Gia Lai’s 29 villages received check-ups and 121 midwives had received training to upgrade their skills that enable them to care for expectant mothers who decide to give birth at home.

Over 400 ethnic women also received medical check-ups after birth.

Ding Thi Hleng, an Ede ethnic woman in Gia Lai’s Kon Long Khong village, said she gave birth to her first son nine years ago.

“I gave birth at home with help from my husband,” Hleng said. “He cut the umbilical cord with a knife from our kitchen.”

Hleng decided to give birth to her second boy last month at the village clinic. “I got check-ups six times during pregnancy. My son and I are in good health.”

“I persuaded my sister-in-law, who is three-month pregnant, to give birth at a clinic to have good health like me,” Hleng said./.