Maria Barletta, 86-year-old midwifereceived today from Municipality of Mantua one of the awards that each year is given to professionals who, with their commitment and work, increase the prestige of the city.
“I am the only woman who received the award this year (four in total) and, above all, the first midwife ever,” underlines Barletta, who defines herself as a “terrona”, even if the award Today it shows that it has conquered the hearts of the people of Mantua and that it can be considered “Mantuan in all respects”.
Commitment to women’s health
Maria Barletta, who years ago received another important recognition – “I was awarded by the President of the Republic with the title of Knight of Merit for Work” – first of all she wants to thank Fnopo, the national federation of the orders of the midwifery profession that “with its national and territorial representatives, which allowed me to get this far, supporting me at every step”. And that dedicates to her, today, a medal and a parchment delivered personally by the president, Silvia Vaccari, and the secretary Elsa Del Bo, both also present during the awarding of the Mantua prize.
Despite having ‘conquered’ retirement age for some time now, the 86-year-old continues to be at the forefront of support for women and their health. “I am currently involved in a project dedicated to the elderly: today we live longer thanks to the progress of science. But this is not enough – says the midwife –. We must not only aspire to longevity, but also to live the last years of our lives in the best possible health conditions”.
The midwife Maria Barletta
Maria Barletta (center) awarded by the municipality of Mantua (Fnopo)
Barletta, originally from Villapiana di Cosenza, arrived in Mantua in 1957, when she was just 19 years old, to attend the midwifery school. From that moment on, the Lombard city became her home, even though she often traveled for professional reasons. She held international positions, first and foremost as delegate for the midwifery profession for the European Unionsince 1990. A commitment through which she has given life to 38 study groups and several publications: “I have never written books for profit – she assures -. All my texts are available free of charge, conceived precisely to spread knowledge to any level of society, including the most disadvantaged”. Her career, therefore, spans almost a century of history spanning two different millennia: “From when I obtained the title of midwife to today, the profession has changed profoundlyeven if the spirit that must guide today’s professionals must be the same as then: to have the health of every human being at heart and take care of it”.
The epochal revolution of the 194 and the dream in the drawer
Among the many revolutions that have crossed her profession, the one that Maria Barletta defines as ‘epochal’ is law 194: “Before voluntary termination of pregnancy was legalized, there were many, too many women who arrived at the hospital in serious conditions, with heavy bleeding in progress caused by a clandestine abortion. And the number of those who lost their lives because of this was unacceptable. The obstetric pathology departments were among the most crowded. Now fortunately, thanks to law 194, similar cases are more than rare”. Finally, Barletta addresses the new generation of obstetrics and those who are not yet clear about the path to take: “I would always choose this profession again, because it is in the role of midwife that I have experienced the most beautiful and profound emotions of my life”. Even if she has hung up her coat, at least on paper, the elderly woman still has a dream to be realized: “I would like a Women’s and Children’s Health Center to be created in Mantua, a place run by obstetricians, which welcomes all pregnancies and physiological births”.
