There are people who always rejoice in hearing babies cry, though most of us do not like to hear their cry. They are obstetricians and midwives.
Choe Kyong Hwa at obstetrical department No. 5 at the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital has been working as midwife for 23 years since the age of 19.
After graduating from then Pyongyang Surgical College in 1998, she began to work as midwife at the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital.
As to her first experience of receiving a baby in the delivery room, Choe recalled: “It is difficult to explain what I felt at the time. Anyway, I was happy. I cannot forget I felt a lump in my throat when the baby’s mother said before leaving the hospital: ‘Sister Choe, I will bring up the child properly without fail.’”
What she found it most difficult as a midwife was to comfort and encourage nervous pregnant women.
“I had never gone through the throes of delivery, so I could not properly manage the situation whenever an expectant mother entered the delivery room very tense and scared,” said Choe smilingly.
That was why Choe would get tense as much as pregnant women from the expected dates and she would also sweat along with the start of their regular labour pains.
And she is now a chief midwife known as one of the best midwives of the hospital.
In those years, she felt a great pride of saving both mother and baby by ensuring safe delivery in an urgent circumstance.
Scarcely a day goes by without seeing the newborn at the hospital.
“I become more attached to my job whenever I meet new mothers and their families who leave the hospital with great joy and happiness and deeply appreciate our efforts and sincerity,” Choe said.
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