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Morjina lives in a remote part of North East Bangladesh and is expecting her second child.
Like most women in Bangladesh, Morjina will have her baby with only the help of a traditional birth attendant or dhai. Poverty and lack of access to medical facilities means that this is her only feasible option –the nearest hospital is two and a half hours away.
The dhais are the only choice for most women – in Bangladesh over 90% of women will give birth at home, most without the help of trained medical staff. It is one of the most dangerous places in the world to have a baby.
The only tools the dhai uses are a razor blade and a piece of string to tie the umbilical cord with. If there were any complications during birth, such as haemorrhage or obstructed labour, the dhai could do little to help.
Morjina's contractions begin and the dhai prepares for the baby's arrival. Morjina crouches as the dhai uses traditional techniques to try and ensure quick delivery. Morjina is encouraged to wretch by having her hair pushed down her throat and burning chilli is brought for Morjina to inhale. The Dhai favours a quick delivery, as a long labour could bring difficulties that she would not be able to cope with. Within a few hours Morjina has given birth to a baby girl.
In keeping with tradition for the birth of a girl, the placenta is buried inside the house after delivery and traditional rituals follow – the baby's first meal is honey and the dhai stretches the child's limbs to encourage strength and growth.
But the ordeal for Morjina's baby is not over yet; she now faces the most vulnerable month of her life. Every year 4 million babies die during the first month of life - 2 million in the first day alone. Without access to immunisations and basic medical care this little girl will have to fend for herself against many potentially fatal childhood illnesses.
It's often the case that the research you do for a programme seems more extreme than is actually borne out in reality once filming starts. Not so for me when making my film about maternal health in Bangladesh. I've been making documentaries in the developing world for the last decade but what I witnessed there was genuinely shocking.
The trip started gently. We filmed a birth in a hospital not far from Dhaka where health provision was as good as it gets in rural Bangladesh.
But it was when we traveled to a remote area in the North East of Bangladesh that things changed. Before long, we were called to a birth. In a small corrugated iron hut, a young woman, Morjina, was in labour, squatting next to her bed, she groaned as other women came rushing in and out of the house bringing garlic and burning chillies to encourage her to retch and strengthen the contractions. Once the baby arrived, concealed by the folded sari, the dhai started pushing on the woman's tummy with hands and then her feet in order to deliver the placenta as quickly as possible. She also forced Morjina’s hair down her throat. Eventually the placenta came away and was buried next to the bed deep in the floor made of mud.
I thought back to the birth of my own children in a perfectly appointed labour suite surrounded by reassuring medical staff who probably could have saved me and my baby whatever happened. My experience in the tiny corrugated iron hut made me realize that what I imagined was the right of every woman was, in fact, an incredible luxury afforded to the lucky few.
