With ongoing rocket barrages and the high probability of heightened conflict with Hezbollah in Israel’s north, some residents of the region worry about receiving timely medical care. For pregnant women, this concern is especially pressing.
In response to this need, Magen David Adom is partnering with the Israel Midwives Organization on “First Contractions,” a project that will assist women in delivering their babies safely even when war, terror attacks or military-style blockades prevent immediate transport to a hospital.
Most Israeli women give birth in hospitals for safety reasons. In 2023, 16,283 birthing women were transported to hospitals, while 1,062 labored with help from MDA teams in their homes or on their way to the hospital. When complications arise in home births, women in labor are often transported to a hospital for further treatment.
However, ongoing rocket fire means that women in the region must be prepared to give birth without the medical benefits of a hospital setting.
First Contractions, funded by the Jewish Federations of North America, is making that process safer and easier by providing midwives with the training and equipment they will need to best assist women in labor. The project is also matching midwives with expectant mothers in their local area.
“A complication in childbirth can end tragically for the woman giving birth and for the newborn, especially when it is an out-of-hospital birth,” explained MDA’s deputy director-general for medicine Dr. Raphael Strugo. “As in every emergency medical situation, when there is an experienced caregiver on the scene — and in this case an experienced midwife — the event is significantly better run.”
In the first phase of the project, the two organizations are mapping expectant women in the north who may need services and helping to connect them with on-call midwives geographically close to them. Matching the women early on is also meant to encourage a calmer, more comfortable birthing experience, despite the challenging circumstances.
“The purpose of midwifery is to accompany women during both routine times and emergencies,” said Yifat Rubanenko, chair of the Israel Midwives Organization. “The First Contractions project will enable pregnant women who live in the shadow of war to get to know the midwives in their region early on.”
MDA provides special equipment to midwives for use in emergency birth situations. It also uploads the midwives’ contact information to its cutting-edge dispatch system so that the on-call midwives can be dispatched to births as needed.
Recently, two intensive training sessions were held, with equipment presented to 37 midwives from the Golan Heights and Western Galilee. During the sessions, the midwives learned how to use the equipment and how to operate within MDA’s emergency dispatch system.
The project is expected to expand to other regions throughout the country. It is part of a series of initiatives by MDA to prepare for future emergency scenarios in the aftermath of Oct. 7. Such initiatives include creating community-based medical response teams, which will treat patients when immediate transport to a hospital is not possible, as well as formulating detailed plans for treating patients in the event of serious power and cellular outages.
“At MDA, we are doing everything to be prepared for any scenario. The midwives will help us redouble our efforts as they are able to provide a professional medical response before MDA teams arrive. I have no doubt that the joint initiative of the Israel Midwives Organization and MDA will help bring new lives safely into the world, and also save the lives of newborns and their mothers,” said MDA director-general Eli Bin.
