{"id":2999,"date":"2024-12-30T02:58:26","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T02:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipasindone1stg.wpenginepowered.com\/midwife-merys-story-counseling-as-key-in-pregnancy-planning-in-remote-villages\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T05:41:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:41:03","slug":"midwife-merys-story-counseling-as-key-in-pregnancy-planning-in-remote-villages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/midwife-merys-story-counseling-as-key-in-pregnancy-planning-in-remote-villages\/","title":{"rendered":"Midwife Mery’s Story: Counseling as Key in Pregnancy Planning in Remote Villages"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Pregnancy planning is very crucial in areas with limited access to reproductive health services. This has been a key learning for Midwife Mery Amalia Patnay during her practice in Sunu Village, South Central Timor Regency, since 2021. She consistently strives to assist women in planning their pregnancies through counseling. <\/p>\n

Midwife Mery once handled a rather challenging pregnancy case. \u201cThere was a pregnant woman who was expecting her 12th child at around 50 years old. We had already made a planned referral, so the patient was supposed to give birth at the hospital,\u201d she stated. <\/p>\n

However, \u201cdue to the rain, the family reasoned they did not want to go to the hospital,\u201d she added. Despite this, village officials had already called an ambulance to refer the mother. \u201cThe patient refused because she had no money. It was then that the village officials provided transportation funds from the village budget,\u201d Midwife Mery recalled.<\/p>\n

Stemming from this incident, she encourages every woman in Sunu Village to meticulously plan their pregnancies to avoid unforeseen circumstances. With this planning, she finds it easier to prioritize available services. This is crucial for Midwife Mery as she is the only midwife in the village. <\/p>\n

\u201cBecause there is only one midwife here, and the distance between hamlets is considerable, what I do is home visits, especially for high-risk pregnant women and those with unplanned pregnancies. During these visits, I provide counseling,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Changing behavior to better plan pregnancies is not an easy task. \u201cThe main obstacle here is the existing tradition that for women to use family planning, they must first be taken to church before they can use it. There are even families where the husband makes the decision regarding family planning,\u201d she emphasized. <\/p>\n

To encourage this change, Midwife Mery collaborates with the pastor and several parties, including village officials and youth groups. \u201cI once conducted a home visit to a pregnant woman with the pastor\u2019s wife and the village head because at that time, the pregnant woman was expecting her 6th child and had never used family planning,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

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The family also refused to be referred to the Community Health Center (Puskesmas) for delivery. \u201cAfter the visit and [the pastor] prayed for the pregnant woman, she finally agreed to go to the Community Health Center. She agreed to use an implant after my counseling,\u201d Midwife Mery recalled. <\/p>\n

Family Planning Training Enhances Confidence in Counseling<\/strong><\/p>\n

Midwife Mery acknowledges that the midwife training organized by IPAS Indonesia Foundation has enhanced her skills in providing counseling for pregnancy planning. \u201cI have become more confident in providing proper and effective counseling to pregnant women,\u201d she admitted. <\/p>\n

For instance, she began encouraging women with pregnancies beyond 32 weeks to plan their pregnancies. \u201cTherefore, what I promote to pregnant women is long-term family planning,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do I need to counsel them to switch to long-term family planning? Because sometimes they use short-term family planning. And they migrate out of town. Well, during their migration, they sometimes forget their injection dates,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n

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Pregnancy planning is very crucial in areas with limited access to reproductive health services. This has been a key learning for Midwife Mery Amalia Patnay during her practice in Sunu Village, South Central Timor Regency, since 2021. She consistently strives to assist women in planning their pregnancies through counseling. Midwife Mery once handled a rather challenging pregnancy case. \u201cThere was a pregnant woman who was expecting her 12th child at around 50 years old. We had already made a planned referral, so the patient was supposed to give birth at the hospital,\u201d she stated. However, \u201cdue to the rain, the family reasoned they did not want to go to the hospital,\u201d she added. Despite this, village officials had already called an ambulance to refer the mother. \u201cThe patient refused because she had no money. It was then that the village officials provided transportation funds from the village budget,\u201d Midwife Mery recalled. Stemming from this incident, she encourages every woman in Sunu Village to meticulously plan their pregnancies to avoid unforeseen circumstances. With this planning, she finds it easier to prioritize available services. This is crucial for Midwife Mery as she is the only midwife in the village. \u201cBecause there is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3001,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\r\n

\"\"<\/figure>\r\n\r\n

Perencanaan kehamilan menjadi sangat krusial di daerah dengan akses layanan kesehatan reproduksi yang terbatas. Itulah yang menjadi pembelajaran bagi Bidan Mery Amalia Patnay selama berpraktik di Desa Sunu, Kabupaten Timor Tengah Selatan, sejak 2021. Ia selalu berusaha untuk membantu perempuan dalam merencanakan kehamilannya melalui proses konseling.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Bidan Mery pernah menangani kasus kehamilan yang lumayan menantang. \u201c[Pernah ada] ibu hamil yang sedang hamil anak ke-12 dengan usia sekitar 50 tahun. Kami sudah melakukan rujukan terencana, jadi pasien tersebut harus bersalin di rumah sakit,\u201d ujarnya.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Akan tetapi, \u201ckarena hujan, keluarga beralasan mereka tidak mau ke rumah sakit,\u2019 ia menambahkan. Padahal, aparat desa telah menelepon mobil ambulans untuk merujuk ibu tersebut. \u201cPasien menolak karena tidak mempunyai uang. Dari situlah aparat desa memberikan uang transportasi dari dana desa,\u201d kenang Bidan Mery.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Berangkat dari peristiwa inilah, ia mendorong setiap perempuan di Desa Sunu untuk merencanakan kehamilannya dengan matang untuk menghindari hal-hal yang tidak terduga. Dengan perencanaan ini, ia lebih mudah untuk memprioritaskan layanan-layanan yang ada. Hal ini sangat penting bagi Bidan Mery karena ia merupakan satu-satunya bidan di kampung tersebut.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Karena di sini hanya ada satu bidan, dan jarak antar dusun itu jauh, jadi yang saya lakukan adalah mengunjungi rumah, terutama untuk ibu hamil dengan risiko tinggi dan kehamilannya tidak direncanakan. Dalam kunjungan tersebut, saya memberikan konseling,\" tambahnya.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Mengubah perilaku untuk merencanakan kehamilan dengan lebih baik bukanlah perkara mudah. \"Kendala yang utama, di sini masih ada tradisi, bahwa memakai KB\u202f itu, perempuan dibawa ke gereja terlebih dahulu, baru bisa menggunakan KB. Bahkan masih ada keluarga di mana suaminya yang mengambil keputusan untuk ber-KB,\" tandasnya.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Untuk mendorong perubahan itu, Bidan Mery bekerja sama dengan pendeta dan sejumlah pihak termasuk dengan aparat desa dan kelompok orang muda. \u201cSaya pernah melakukan kunjungan ke ibu hamil bersama ibu pendeta dan juga bapak desa karena waktu itu ibu hamil tersebut hamil anak ke-6 dan tidak pernah menggunakan KB,\u201d imbuhnya.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/figure>\r\n\r\n

Keluarga tersebut juga menolak untuk dirujuk ke Puskesmas untuk proses persalinan. \u201cSetelah melakukan kunjungan dan [pendeta] mendoakan ibu hamil, akhirnya ibu hamil tersebut mau ke puskesmas. Dia mau memakai implan setelah saya konseling,\u201d kenang Bidan Mery.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Pelatihan KB meningkatkan kepercayaan diri dalam konseling\u202f<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Bidan Mery mengakui pelatihan bidan yang diselenggarakan Yayasan IPAS Indonesia mampu meningkatkan keterampilannya dalam memberikan konseling untuk merencanakan kehamilan. \u201cSaya mulai percaya diri untuk memberikan konseling yang baik dan benar kepada ibu hamil,\u201d akunya.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Misalnya, ia mulai mengajak ibu dengan kehamilan di atas usia 32 minggu untuk merencanakan kehamilannya. \u201cJadi yang saya promosikan kepada ibu-ibu hamil adalah KB jangka panjang,\u201d imbuhnya.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u201cKenapa saya harus melakukan konseling untuk mereka beralih KB jangka panjang? Karena terkadang mereka menggunakan KB jangka pendek. Dan mereka merantau keluar kota. Nah, saat merantau itu, mereka terkadang lupa tanggal suntiknya,\u201d pungkasnya.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[167],"tags":[91,204,92,89,22,192,48,174,205,49,175],"topic":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2999","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-stories","8":"tag-bidan","9":"tag-family-planning-2","10":"tag-hamil","11":"tag-keluarga-berencana","12":"tag-kontrasepsi","13":"tag-midwife","14":"tag-ntt","16":"tag-pregnancy","17":"tag-takenusa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2999"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipasindonesia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}