An on-call midwife, part of MDA’s First Contractions initiative, delivered a baby boy in a vacation rental with an ambulance team.
Expectant mother Brit was enjoying a few days away in northern Israel with her husband and children before her fourth child arrived. Labor began while she was still away, so Brit and her husband called Magen David Adom and an on-call midwife was dispatched as well as an ambulance team.
When Brit woke up feeling labor contractions beginning while on her family getaway in Hispin in the Golan Heights, she and her husband debated whether to go to the local hospital or to call MDA. After they called MDA, the first medical help to arrive at their “zimmer” or guest house was a midwife named Nechama Paltiel. She was dispatched by MDA as part of a new initiative called First Contractions in which midwives work in cooperation with MDA in northern Israel to help women safely deliver babies at home due to the ongoing conflict with Lebanon.
After examining Brit, already a mother of three, Paltiel determined that Brit was far enough in labor that the safest thing to do was deliver the baby right in the guest house. The MDA ambulance team arrived and assisted Paltiel in delivering Brit’s healthy baby boy.
“The decision to call MDA was right, I wouldn’t have made it to the hospital in time for the birth,” reflected Brit.
The MDA team then brought Brit and her new baby to the hospital in good health to recover for a few days before they returned to their home in Safed for the baby’s ritual circumcision ceremony.
“I have been a homebirth midwife for six and half years. There is no greater satisfaction than being there for a mother who brings life into the world, especially during emergency times” said Paltiel. “MDA’s collaboration with the Israel Midwives Association is amazing and especially important at a time like this when the security situation is precarious.”
First Contractions began this summer in the Western Galilee and Golan Heights in an effort to make emergency home births safer. It is sponsored by MDA, the Israel Midwives Organization, and the Jewish Federations of North America. The midwives are dispatched by MDA and they received specialized first aid kits for home births, including hand-held Doppler ultrasound devices and oxygen tanks. First Contractions is expected to expand to other locations in Israel.
“Many thanks to MDA’s dispatcher who was patient and reassured us over the phone,” said Brit, “and thank you, of course, to my wonderful midwife Nechama Paltiel and to the MDA staff who treated me in the best way possible. I couldn’t have asked for a better birth.”
