Birthplace: First bus pocket after Vorpenes (in the ambulance)☺ This is what the birth card of Harald Krisfoffer, who was born in March last year, looks like. Anette Strand and Ådne Stensø’s first son together arrived in the back of an ambulance on the side of an unpaved road in the middle of the night. It had been over an hour since they had driven past their own hospital, in Kristiansund, where the maternity ward has now been closed down. – We would like to have more children, but as long as things are as they are now, that is not an option, says the mother of two. Not everyone can see a bus pocket as their birthplace, but that’s how it was for Harald Kristoffer one March night last year. Photo: MARIUS ANDRÉ JENSSEN STENBERG / news A long journey Anette Strand has given birth before, but the hospital she was in at the time, in Kristiansund, closed its maternity ward about a year before little Harald Kristoffer was born. The trip to the maternity ward in Molde was a milk route for both Strand and roommate Ådne Stensø, something Klassekampen has previously written about. There was a full blizzard and no plowing at all the night the water went. On a Monday evening in March, two weeks before the due date, the birth of Strand is underway. The trip to the quay takes 40 minutes due to the snow. Usually it takes a maximum of 20. They take the ambulance boat to pick up the accompanying midwife. So the ambulance will pick them up in Kristiansund. The hospital, which is a few hundred meters away, no longer has a maternity ward. On unpaved roads and in bad weather, the ambulance moves slowly towards Molde. In a bus stop about 20 minutes away from the maternity ward in Molde, they drive in to side. This is where Harald Kristoffer comes into the world. Father Ådne Stensø only has a view from the passenger seat through a hatch in the ambulance. A little over three hours have passed since the family left their home to come to the hospital. Strand had to lie on the stretcher in the ambulance and then had to be strapped down. She thought it was particularly difficult not to be able to do what her body wanted in such a situation, that she had to lie strapped down and could not move except to turn to the side. When it was only half an hour to the hospital in Molde, she had come so far in labor that the paramedics told her that she had to say if she felt anything coming. – Then I think we got fifty meters away in the road at a bus stop where we had to stop. So it was at a press conference, and there he came, says Strand. Ådne Stensø had to sit at the front of the ambulance during the birth and only had a view through the hatch at the back. – In a way, I was relieved that it was over, that I didn’t have to lie down the rest of the way with the pain and contractions. And car sickness on top of it all, says Strand. Photo: Private – Not something I want to do again When the maternity services in Kristiansund disappeared, pregnant women in Smøla had 44 per cent longer travel time to a place to give birth. This is according to updated figures from Statistics Norway. There is a big difference in Norway in the travel time to a place to give birth. Mothers in Volda have the shortest journey in the country, with a median driving time of three minutes. At Røst it is 7 hours. In the last twenty years, around 0.3 per cent of all births in the country each year have occurred during transport, according to the Medical Birth Register. There are around 150–200 births a year. – We would like to have more children, but as long as things are as they are now, that is not an option, says Strand. She says they were lucky this time, but that several women who also have longer journeys do not always make it as far. – I want us to have the same rights as those who live in other places, she says. The graphic from Statistics Norway shows the median driving time to the place of birth before and after the maternity ward at Kristiansund hospital was closed down. Screen dump / Statistics Norway Measures that were not helpful Strand said that the small family settled in Smøla for their part, and that they knew the challenges with being pregnant. – But it just gets worse and worse, quite simply. And that doesn’t make it any more tempting for people to move here or to have more children. For those with a long journey, there is often an offer to stay in a hotel near the hospital as the due date approaches. – But we live on a small farm. We have animals, we have another son, it’s not just letting go of everything you have in your hands, says Strand. In addition, the youngest son arrived two weeks before the due date. – It becomes a somewhat empty offer, despite the fact that it is there, because it is difficult to take advantage of it. We can’t plan the day he will come. Anette Strand and Ådne Stensø say they were incredibly lucky and are happy that nothing happened during the birth. – It was even possible that we had to have an emergency caesarean section then, in the middle of the mountain there, says Strand. Photo: MARIUS ANDRÉ JENSSEN STENBERG / news Head of the clinics in Kristiansund and Molde, Britt Rakvåg Roald, wrote in an e-mail to news: We are busy looking after all births in a safe and good way. We have a direct dialogue with the pregnant women who have the longest journey about follow-up and emergency services and other compensatory measures, some will deliver in Molde and some have chosen to give birth at St. Olav’s hospital in Trondheim.
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The maternity ward was closed – Anette had to give birth in a bus pocket on the way to the next hospital
