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Local midwife to help women in Caribbean

| May 6, 2010 9:00 PM

COEUR d'ALENE - Makaia Foster wants to help.

Spurred by the need to assist after a massive earthquake rocked Haiti earlier this year, Foster, a licensed midwife and massage therapist, wants to lend her experience and training as the struggling country tries to rebuild.

"It hit me deeply and I had to find a way to get there," Foster said. "There's so much need. You have to look at the greater need as a whole."

Through the Bumi Sehat foundation, Foster will help mothers who are preparing for child birth as well as train Haitians to become midwives themselves and establish a birth center for one month this summer.

Foster has worked as a midwife for around 30 years. And the need for midwives and a birth center in Haiti is high right now, as many of the residents have been living in tents since the quake.

"Every possible place is full of tents," she said. "Water is a big issue, and food is rough as the agencies aren't able to get their stuff in."

Foster, who works at Body Tech Massage and Alternative Therapy in Hayden, will be taking 150 pounds of medical supplies to Jacmel, a city about 20 miles from Port-au-Prince.

Midwives assist with home child birth, which is a common practice outside the United States, she said. It's a popular method domestically too, as homes are generally a more relaxed atmosphere for mothers. Foster has delivered an average of a baby a week during the last couple of months. She has also assisted hospitals in the Caribbean before, volunteering in St. Lucia for a month over 9 years.

Before she embarks, Network Coeur d'Alene is sponsoring a Benefit for the Babies concert and silent auction to help raise money for shipping the medical supplies there. Foster is paying her own way there.

The event will be Friday, May 14, from 4 to 7 p.m. during the Art Walk downtown at the Sherman Square Park next to Figpickels, and feature music by Jr. Marimba Band as well as seated massages, face painting and an oxygen bar.

"It's for anybody who wants to help out," she said of the invited guests.

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