Frontline Midwife: My Story of Survival and Keeping Others Safe

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Anna’s first posting is to the South Sudan, and though she feels that she is prepared for what she is going to see and have to deal with she soon realises she isn’t. Disclaimer: I worked with Anna Kent and can confirm the accurracy of her account as well as her compassion and expertise. At age thirty she would be responsible for the female health of 30,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. This book distils the relationship between patient safety, professional accountability and emotional capacity to its very essence. Knowing that you may die in childbirth, is part of the experience for women in so many parts of the world, and Although many of these deaths are unavoidable simple things, like providing a clean way to cut the umbilical cord to prevent neonatal tetanus make a huge difference.

Throughout the course of the book, Kent manages to slowly turn self-criticism into self-reflection, and to find more beneficial coping strategies. This book can be read many times if there is something to see or peep beyond the wall of society and life. Anna doesn’t mince words but mainly leads the reader to draw their own conclusions about injustice – mainly poverty and misogyny – from the stories of those who survive and do not survive.I knew ‘Frontline Midwife’ would be a terrific book ever since Anna, who I once met in Bangladesh, told me she was writing it. Angry at the ongoing horrific loss of life and the disability causes by a lack of midwifery care and basics such as clean water, sanitation, food and immunisations. I have always stated that political sanctions don’t work and this book is the reason why since it demonstrates fully how those already suffering get to suffer even more. However, after all the danger Anna sees and works in, it is a surfing accident that almost kills her.

Kent barely contains her anger and disbelief at the fact that people are forced, through circumstance, to make appalling decisions. I have so much respect and love for midwives - especially the two who helped bring my three children safely into the world. I'm not a midwife but I feel that I learned so much about the places, people and challenges described. Her journey takes her through south Sudan, Haiti and Bangladesh, and describes in graphic detail some of the heartbreaking experiences of the women she encountered. I recently started reading this book and couldn’t put it down (well apart from some shifts and uni work annoyingly getting in the way).Used to having access to high tech equipment, Anna has to learn to use the more “old-fashioned” equipment that is available. Once qualified, she did some midwifery at home, and then went back again overseas to be a midwife in the war torn countries. However, I think these graphic stories are needed in the book to really show the importance of midwifery and care in underdeveloped countries. I loved her characterisation of James and other co-workers and the descriptions of her relationships with the people she was trying to help keep safe were truly heart-rending. However, Kent manages to avoid this and treats all the families she describes with dignity and respect.

Anna I am so sorry about your darling daughter Fatima but my heart screamed with delight at Aisha’s birth with the lovely and divine Nicky in attendance (what a gorgeous human being she is). Anna Kent has helped women birth babies in war zones, caring for the most vulnerable people in the most vulnerable places in the world. Thank you Anna Kent for writing your story and making us aware that we are a long way from getting status for women around the world. In this book, along with her own journey, Anna has also written the story of those women who sometimes suffer from malnutrition at home, and sometimes due to lack of medicines, they put their child's life in danger as well. At one of her jobs despite hating to do so all the aid workers have to leave the facility they work in at a certain time as their safety cannot be guaranteed after that time.Once a trained midwife, Anna went out to Haiti in 2010 and also Bangladesh, where she was responsible for women's health in a refugee camp, caring for those who had become stateless – not under a country's protection. I cried a lot reading Anna’s experiences but also smiled at her ability to find love, friendship and humour where she could in the bleakest of circumstances. Be aware the book does come with trigger warnings around baby loss, gender-based violence, birth-related injuries and maternal death. You can tell she really cares about her patients and profession and this shines through in the way she tells her stories.

I once had a rose coloured tint of working for MSF but that is no more and I revere my fellow health professionals who have worked for MSF even more. Anna has highs in her career, for example providing birthing kits for the traditional birthing assistants to use meaning less risk of infections, but with highs there are also lows, some of the procedures she has to do are horrific, its no wonder she has nightmares and suffers PTSD. The author really bears her soul, and I imagine that writing this book must be quite must’ve been quite cathartic .Talking about the why she decided to document her experiences, Anna said that sometimes her role as a healthcare professional is to see the atrocities and speak out against them. Not only showing the joys, but shedding light into the politics of refugees, the challenges associated with healthcare in lower resource countries, as well as the personal sacrifices of this admirable path.