Faryab, Afghanistan – “If the women deliver during the day, they have options on where to go to give birth – they can even travel to the provincial center to give birth in the hospital. But at night, this is the only clinic that women in nearby villages can go to because I am on call 24/7.”

Midwife Yulduz’s dedication to her work as a midwife cannot be underestimated. She is the lone midwife at the Charshanbe Family Health House (FHH), a birthing facility in the remote district of Qaysar, which is about 70 kilometers away from Faryab’s capital, Maimana. The FHH is supported by UNFPA with funding from the Government of Japan.

As the only midwife in the FHH, Yulduz is always on alert, especially at night, to respond to emergency deliveries when she receives a call. And evening childbirths are not a rarity in the FHH, where she attends to an average of 30 deliveries per month.

Just last week, I delivered three babies in one night. The first mother arrived at around 8 p.m. Soon after, the second mother came.

As if the situation was not stressful enough, it turns out that the second mother was having twins.

Yulduz, assisted by a nurse, attended to both mothers as they went through labour. Fortunately, they delivered at different times. The first mother delivered past midnight as the second was still in labour.

About two hours later, Yulduz prepared to assist the delivery of the other mother, who was by then fully dilated. Relying on her eight years of experience as a midwife, managing some complicated cases, including the delivery of twins, Yulduz smoothly delivered the babies one after the other.

By 4 a.m., she closed the FHH and went home with her husband to get a few hours of sleep and be ready to return to the clinic for another day’s work.

I was very tired, but it is my duty to support the mothers and provide the best care I could.

Yulduz not only delivers babies. On average, she attends to 60 patients a day at the FHH, including mothers who require antenatal and postnatal care, adolescents who require general health services, and children who come for vaccination and screening for malnutrition.

Aside from the usual challenges that come with delivering babies at night, the situation is exacerbated by the community's lack of electricity. Yulduz always had to improvise, whether it was a torch, a candle, or light from her cellphone – anything that could improve the lighting in the delivery room so she could perform her work with ease.

She was therefore pleasantly surprised when Japanese electronics company Panasonic, through UNFPA, donated portable lanterns for the FHH.

“These solar lanterns will definitely make my work a lot manageable, especially at night whenever I have to deliver babies.“

These solar lanterns will definitely make my work a lot more manageable, especially at night whenever I have to deliver babies,” said Yulduz, whose name means “star” in the Uzbek language spoken by the locals. “The illumination that these lanterns will provide will be crucial for ensuring the safety of both the mother and the newborn during childbirth.”