The Volunteer Traditional Birth Attendant Plugging the Healthcare Gap for Women in Durumi IDP Camp

Jacquelyn Alvarado, a certified nurse midwife with the Texas A&M Rural and Community Health Institute, travels across Texas to teach rural hospital staff how to deliver babies. Using a mannequin, she runs simulations covering both routine and complicated deliveries for ER nurses, paramedics, and other non-obstetrical staff who may be the only help available when a rural patient goes into labor.

Reachout Center Trust is addressing gaps in maternal healthcare with mobile outreach to connect pregnant women with clinics for full-service care up to delivery. The program has served over 200 women since forming and research shows its intervention has led to healthier babies and reduced stigma in seeking hospital care.

In 2017, residents of Kabuga Aisami in Kano built their own maternal and child health hospital to address maternal mortality rates and improve access to care. Led by the Kabuga Aisami Community Initiative (KACI), community members pooled resources to construct the facility, which includes two labor rooms, three wards with 40 beds, four laboratories, a pharmacy, 25 toilets, and three self-contained flats for doctors to enable 24-hour care. Patient volume has since increased by over 250%, and the hospital has expanded to serve 10 surrounding communities, as well.

The Bauchi State Impact Project aims to improve maternal and newborn health by training 100 people to become skilled birth attendants. Despite infrastructure challenges, the Project not only provides work and purpose to those trained, but also helps make childbirth safer by providing much-needed care.

In an effort to address maternal mortality rates and overall maternal health conditions, groups of midwives are hosting community dialogue sessions that serve as educational opportunities for preventing danger. Maternal and infant mortality rates have already begun to decrease, and midwives also provide support beyond education, giving mothers food and other supplies as needed.

Enugu State is addressing healthcare access gaps and high maternal mortality by establishing 260 Type 2 Primary Healthcare Centers, with 100 already completed. These fully-equipped facilities provide 24-hour care with essential medications and reliable utilities. As part of the initiative, the Centers are also recruiting 2,200 healthcare workers, training over 1,800 staff members in safe delivery and contraceptive methods, introducing AI-assisted ultrasound screening and implementing affordable health insurance. Since opening in March 2025, one center alone has served over 690 people.

Women volunteers with PHC Kara are going into the community to share important healthcare information with pregnant women, in an effort to improve maternal and infant mortality rates and health outcomes. The group has also received support and recognition from UNICEF’S Mama2Mama healthcare initiative and Rural Health Mission Nigeria, providing them with clean birth kits and other supplies to distribute to women.

The Abiye Project registered over 20,000 pregnant women using a community-based model to ensure they receive proper healthcare. The program connected women with trained health rangers who served as liaisons with traditional birth attendants (TBAs). When TBAs’ resistance stalled the program, the government introduced financial incentives, paying them for each patient referral, leading to more hospital births and a reduced child and maternal mortality rate.

Morehouse School of Medicine is training local women to become doulas through its Perinatal Patient Navigators program. A dozen participants — all Black women — recently graduated from the program after five months of training, ready to provide care and support to other women of color in rural communities. Studies show the presence of a doula improves labor and delivery outcomes, reduces stress and results in fewer expensive childbirth interventions, like C-sections.

AI software BabyChecker is a portable ultrasound tool that can be accessed through smartphones and allows community health workers to easily and quickly detect pregnancy risks in rural areas where access to care is difficult. So far, over 20 community health workers have been trained to use the technology, and more than 2,000 pregnant women have been scanned using the BabyChecker app.