The young midwife whose story took the nation by storm recently for helping a woman to deliver on a moving bus, says midwifery has always been her passion since childhood and she did not land in the profession by chance.
Sophia Sulemana, who has endeared herself to many around the world for her courage, said her mum is her model because “my mum is a midwife and her passion for her job was so infection it made me find midwifery as an awesome profession right from my childhood.”
Sophia completed midwifery school only last year, but she boldly states that “when I saw the woman go into labour on that bus, my first instinct was to help – I was not scared at all.”
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On Sunday, September 3, 2018, less than one year after Sophia completed midwifery school, she was faced with helping a pregnant woman in labour to deliver on a moving Accra-Walewale bound bus.
Without the necessary equipment to do the job, Sophia still jumped at the opportunity, improvised with polythene bag as gloves and ensured a safe delivery of the baby on the bus, with very little bleeding from the mother.
“I expelled the placenta through control cord traction, then I massaged the uterus through the abdomen to contract to help stop bleeding so the woman did not bleed much,” she said, making it sound very easy.
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Sophia used an ordinary blade to cut the umbilical cord and managed to get mother and baby to a hospital in Tamale, where they were both checked out same day because they were fine.
The baby boy has since been named Al-Mumin Abdul Rauf at a ceremony in Damongo.
Many of those who heard and or read about Sophia’s courage, retorted “something inside so strong”, while some think she deserves some forms of national recognition and reward for what she did.
But Sophia herself is very modest about the whole event and tells Adom News “many people have called me and congratulated me on it but I see it as my normal job so I am satisfied with the accolades.”
According to her, the drive behind her courage is her passion for the job because since childhood she had always wanted to be a midwife because her mum is a midwife and she found it “awesome” watching her mum deliver babies.
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Sophia was born in Walewale to the late Sulemana Naaboari, a Moslem, and Margaret Ayale Mahama, who is a midwife and a Christian. She has one direct sister called, Abigail Abida Sulemana, and other step-siblings from her late father’s side.
She had her nursery and primary school education at Walewale Presbyterian School and joined her uncle at Ashanti Mampong in the Ashanti Region, where she had her junior high school education at Mamtech JHS.
Sophia then moved up north to Bolgatanga Girls Senior High School for her second cycle education and then continued to the Tamale Community Health Nurses Training School.
“I then worked for two years before I was sponsored by an NGO called SADA MVP to study midwifery at the Tumu Midwifery Training College and completed last in December last year,” she said.
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According to her, she chose to become a midwife firstly because her mum is a midwife and a fantastic role model; secondly because she had a passion for helping women and thirdly because, in her work as a community health nurse, she witness lots of maternal and infant mortality dues to lack of midwives and she wants to help stop it.
Regarding her mum being her role model, she recalled that “any time I go to my mum’s workplace and I see her conduct delivery it looked so awesome that I told myself I would want to be in my mum’s shoes one day.”
“My mum started as a Community Health Nurse and worked for 15 years before upgrading herself to do midwifery. She did midwifery in her late 40s and now she is a Principal Midwifery Officer. In their time, it wasn’t that easy to easily upgrade yourself but she still did it in spite of her age,” Sophia said.
She works at Kunkwa Health Centre at Tamale, and said on a typical working day, she offers family planning services to clients, antenatal care to pregnant women, postnatal care to mothers, monitors labour cases, conduct deliveries and also helps other nurses when the need arises.
Sophia said she finds midwifery rewarding because she draws satisfaction from helping women to deliver safely, adding however that there are risks of a needle can pricking you, which could lead to an infection, or, liquor splash on you during labour.
Regarding the bus incident that has made her to the toast of social and mainstream media, Sophia said “I was happy that I was able to help someone in need and with a little resource, I was able to manage. I was also happy that people called me to appreciate what I did and that alone makes me very happy.”
She said if the need arises again she will do it again but she would ensure that next time, she would have some basic delivery element like gloves and others.
“I think every midwife should carry at least a pair of gloves, a pair of small scissors, cord clamp and first aid drugs.
Her aspiration is to become a Gynecologist and be in a better position to help more women, but she wonders if that dream will be realised since she did not study medicine.
Pretty face Sophia says she is not married but she is in a tight relationship.
