Frontline Midwife: My Story of Survival and Keeping Others Safe

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This decision may seem ludicrous until it is put into context: without the ability to cook rice, the woman's family will perish. 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 she arrives at the area she will work, she is certainly shocked by the conditions she will have to work in, as well as those she is going to be working with. Anna's honesty about her own life, her flaws and her struggles opens a window to her inner conflicts and pain. When offering training to these women she is told the only reason they are actually turning up is for the food etc on offer whilst they are there.

In this stunning, gripping true story, Anna Kent confronts unimaginable hardships to do good in the world . 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).

To be honest, I thought this would be a book with lots of birth stories (which I love), and Kent’s experiences as a midwife. At 26 years old, not yet a fully trained midwife, she delivered a baby in a tropical storm by the light of a headtorch; the following year, she would be responsible for the female health of 30,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Few can lay claim to a career as eventful as that of Anna Kent, a midwife who spent years delivering babies in war zones and refugee camps across the world.

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. It’s the sort of book that grounds you when you’re feeling particularly vain or want a good whinge about a stressful day because the truth is, you don’t know you’re born. The horrors at work continue for Anna on a daily basis, though she has a network of friends, mostly those she has worked with previously to talk to. Anna Kent has managed to intertwine her profound, intense, personal and dangerous journey with emotional intelligence and compassion to compose a work that throws light on the brutal reality of working as a Nurse/ Midwife on the Frontline of Humanitarian Aid work. Having has a late miscarriage myself and gone through giving birth to a baby, in my case that I knew would never breath made me really identify with her.

At the same time, it made me see how even though I live in one of richest countries in the world, even here there is still so much more that could be done to help women during pregnancy and birth. Then there’s the career Anna has and the differences she made in procedures and planning of health programs and facilities. Working in ravaged, war torn areas of the World like South Sudan, Haiti, and Bangladesh, Anna is one very brave and special human. Being an aid worker doesn’t just change and affect Anna’s work life and career path it also changes her personal relationships and her whole life path. Another down for Anna is the fact that she, and the other aid workers live in constant fear of being kidnapped, even to the point of carrying cash to pay off potential kidnappers.

However bad it is here it’s infinitely better than some folks have it so the next time somebody feels like a good whinge about life in general this is a book I’d recommend they read. I knew ‘Frontline Midwife’ would be a terrific book ever since Anna, who I once met in Bangladesh, told me she was writing it. This book is about obstetrics, heroic women, humanitarian workers, appalling contexts, mental health, and Anna Kent.In her book Frontline Midwife, Anna shares her extraordinary experiences as a nurse, midwife and mother, illuminating the lives of women that are irreparably affected by compromised access to healthcare. 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. Used to having access to high tech equipment, Anna has to learn to use the more “old-fashioned” equipment that is available.

The book may well help some readers to recognise unhealthy thought processes and potential signs of needing more support from friends, colleagues and employers. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. Anna Kent not only lays bare her own struggles and losses but those of the pregnant women and babies she cares for in some of the world's most deprived places.When I originally picked the book up I expected this to be a story of a midwife in the UK during the Covid pandemic, but this wasn't the case. I was immediately drawn to her very calm presence and how she talked to honestly and openly about her life and career. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. It also put how those who lose babies, be they full term or not have been treat in the UK, and the improvements that still need making and put into action.