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Supplying Assistance and Knowledge To Needy Bulgarian Mothers.

© Jeff Taylor

As a country, Bulgaria is in the unique and unenviable situation of exhibiting a negative growth - there are more deaths than births within its population. Recently, in some areas of the country, the number of deaths among children has drastically increased. Many women simply do not know how or do not have the means to properly look after their children. Many of them live in very difficult situations and share similar problems.

The town of Ihtiman and a suburb of Sofia are two of the places where the Mission Without Border's Mother Care Project is on-going. Ihtiman, a town in Western Bulgaria, is situated about 60 km away from Sofia. There is a community of about 7,000 gypsies located in this town. MWB Field Staff's first contact there was the local hospital servicing the town and the villages in the area. It provides gynecological care for the mother's prenatal period and for the babies. Similar to many hospitals in Bulgaria, this one also lacks the necessary supplies and hospital equipment which one would normally expect to find there. For example, the birth room has only two beds, scales for the newborn and two tables. On one of the tables there is a heater where some of the supplies are boiled, in order to be reused at a later time. Despite all these inconveniences the medical staff attempts to do their best in providing the necessary help to the mothers-to-be and take good care of the infants.

There is a health record maintained on each pregnant woman, which provided the Field Staff with essential information about them, and helped to prepare for the implementation of the project. The hospital staff were very helpful, and any time the MWB Field Staff requested a meeting with an individual woman, they assisted in informing the patients of the date and the time of MWB's arrival. In addition, Dr. Boneva visited the women at their homes.

Fifty pregnant women of gypsy heritage were selected in accordance with their social status. All of them are poor and live in difficult conditions. There are even 15 year old mothers-to-be within this group.

In the suburb of Sofia, MWB Field Staff are also working with a recently retired nurse from the area, who knows all of the women and who provided the Field Staff with necessary information and assistance.

One of MWB's goals was to visit the women within their own environment. Hygiene and their living conditions proved to be strikingly poor. The streets were unpaved and that turned out to be the least of their neighborhood problems. Many of the homes have ruined walls, broken window or door frames, no water, electricity or heat. Many families are forced to live in one room together with their other relatives. Almost without exception, all of the pregnant women are unemployed. What is worse is that most of them are single. But even of those who have husbands, those men are also unemployed as well, which makes their lives very difficult.