The demise of birth attendants in Northeast Thailand: embodying tradition in modern times

Grandmother Yim sits rocking two children she helped deliver, laughing as she plays with them. She is a popular woman in the village, always adorned with flowers behind her ears and a betel-stained smile. She is a mor tam yae, a traditional midwife. She is 64 years old and has been helping women give birth since she was 40. When she was young, she would go to the houses of women giving birth to watch and learn and says she was not scared: ‘that was how I learned’. When she was 52, the nurse at the village health station chose her and four other women to be ‘trained’ about birthing at the district public health office. I ask her about what she learned in her ‘training’: I learned to use a razor to cut the cord, in the old days we used to use a snail shell, we would put the cord on top of charcoal and then cut through. When I was trained we learned that if a woman is having a difficult delivery to send them to the health station.