News from the Field

Brazil boasts the world's largest rainforest and longest river, the Amazon, and is home to the world's most spectacular carnival, the Mardi Gras. It also has a more dubious distinction – having one of the highest rates of births by cesarean section operation in any country.

Two Brazilian trainees who came to Japan to study methods for ”humanizing” childbirth.

Such procedures, of course, are necessary in some childbirth situations. But while the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that no more than 15 percent of births in any country should normally be by cesarean section, in Brazil the figure is around 40 percent. In some private clinics it reaches 90 percent. Experts believe that more than half of these procedures are unnecessary.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been helping to provide alternatives to cesarean section operations wherever appropriate. In 1996, it initiated a project called The Maternal and Child Health Improvement Project, nicknamed Projeto Luz or Project Light, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Ceara where there was a high infant mortality rate. It provided perinatal care for women choosing natural childbirth.

In 2002 JICA began to train government employees and midwives in Japanese methods to “humanize childbirth”. Midwife and university lecturer Gerusa Amaral and gynecological expert Virgenia Ferreira, with help from JICA, teamed up to hold seminars in towns and cities throughout northeast and northern Brazil to introduce these new methods.

A father bathes his newborn baby.

"Unnecessary medical intervention is sometimes tantamount to violence and harms women," Gerusa said recently. "The 'humanization' of childbirth protects women and enables them to nurture a deeper love for their children. Spreading the experiences gained during study in Japan and expanding this initiative are my mission in life."