Midwife crisis: Laos slashes maternal mortality but Trump defunding threatens the progress made
Medical training has reduced maternal and infant mortality rates in rural Laos. US president’s decision to cease funding UN body behind the programme, over accusation it backs forced sterilisations in China, could undo all the good work
Loudspeakers blare luk thung music over the 100 or so stilt houses that line the dusty road, signalling the start to a wedding celebration. The sleepy hamlet of Asing Saneh lies in the Nong district of Savannakhet province, in central Laos, not far from the border with Vietnam. The area suffered intense bombing during the Vietnam war and today ranks among the poorest in Laos. Festivities are welcome here, a place where the line between new life and death has often been a fine one.
Khemtay Keolabao crouches outside his house, chopping bamboo with his daughters, aged eight and six. He lost his first wife, the girls’ mother, in childbirth four years ago.
“The closest health centre was an hour away by motorbike,” Keolabao says. “But we didn’t have a motorbike.”
Keolabao’s second wife, Chien, is feeding the family’s pigs, the 22-year-old’s bump clearly visible.
“We married just three months after I became a widower,” the farmer says. “It was time for harvest and I needed someone to take care of the children.”
This time around, adds Keolabao, 34, the pregnancy will be significantly less risky.
