Robin Lim ("Mother Robin," or "Ibu Robin") is a

midwife A midwife (: midwives) is a health professional who cares for mothers and Infant, newborns around childbirth, a specialisation known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughou ...

and founder of ''Yayasan Bumi Sehat'' (Healthy Mother Earth Foundation) health clinics, which offer free

prenatal care Prenatal care, also known as antenatal care, is a type of preventive healthcare for pregnant individuals. It is provided in the form of medical checkups and healthy lifestyle recommendations for the pregnant person. Antenatal care also consists of ...

, birthing services, and medical aid to anyone who needs it. She and her team have been working since 2003 to combat Indonesia's high

maternal A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestatio ...

and

infant mortality Infant mortality is the death of an infant before the infant's first birthday. The occurrence of infant mortality in a population can be described by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the number of deaths of infants under one year of age ...

rates, and the Bumi Sehat birth centers serve many at-risk mothers. She was awarded the 2011

CNN Hero of the Year Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news ...

award by the

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

news network for helping thousands of low-income women in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

with healthy

pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestation, gestates inside a woman's uterus. A multiple birth, multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Conception (biology), Conception usually occurs ...

and

birth Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the f ...

services.

Bumi Sehat

In 2012, the Bumi Sehat Foundation provided 50,050 recorded incidences of patient care, educational and human services. From its beginnings as a community health and childbirth clinic in

Bali Bali (English:; Balinese language, Balinese: ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller o ...

, Lim took the Bumi Sehat Foundation to

Aceh Aceh ( , ; , Jawi script, Jawoë: ; Van Ophuijsen Spelling System, Old Spelling: ''Atjeh'') is the westernmost Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is located on the northern end of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capit ...

following the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time ( UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the sci ...

. Combined, the two clinics have facilitated the birth of more than 5,000 babies. When earthquakes struck, Lim took the project to

Yogyakarta Yogyakarta is the capital city of the Special Region of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, in the south-central part of the island of Java. As the only Indonesian royal city still ruled by Hamengkubuwono, a monarchy, Yogyakarta is regarded as an importan ...

in 2006,

Padang Padang () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of West Sumatra. It had a population of 833,562 at the 2010 CensusBiro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011. and 909,040 at the 2020 Census;Bad ...

in 2008, and

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

in 2010. Lim and the Bumi Sehat midwives are prepared to provide maternal and infant care in the middle of devastated areas with limited materials. Instead of cutting the

umbilical cord In Placentalia, placental mammals, the umbilical cord (also called the navel string, birth cord or ''funiculus umbilicalis'') is a conduit between the developing embryo or fetus and the placenta. During prenatal development, the umbilical cord i ...

, for instance, she burns it—especially in disaster zones, because it's something she can teach midwives and doctors who have lost their instruments. Using

scissors Scissors are hand-operated shearing tools. A pair of scissors consists of a pair of blades pivoted so that the sharpened edges slide against each other when the handles (bows) opposite to the pivot are closed. Scissors are used for cutting var ...

to sever the umbilical cord carries a risk of

tetanus Tetanus (), also known as lockjaw, is a bacterial infection caused by ''Clostridium tetani'' and characterized by muscle spasms. In the most common type, the spasms begin in the jaw and then progress to the rest of the body. Each spasm usually l ...

, while burning the cord mitigates the risk of

infection An infection is the invasion of tissue (biology), tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host (biology), host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmis ...

. In addition to knowing how to safely respond medically, Robin Lim and the Bumi Sehat Foundation don't follow any particular

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

, and honor all requests and faith traditions, aiming to help mothers feel safe and supported. Lim is an advocate for

parental rights Parental responsibility refers to the responsibility which underpin the relationship between the children and the children's parents and those adults who are granted parental responsibility by either signing a 'parental responsibility agreement' ...

. Babies are often held by

hospitals A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency ...

, until payment is made for birthing services. Parents, sometimes in desperation, relinquish their rights and place their babies up for

adoption Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, fro ...

. Lim's Yayasan Bumi Sehat birthing sanctuaries offer free prenatal care, birthing services, and medical aid to anyone who needs it in

, where the average family earns the equivalent of $8 a day, and a normal hospital delivery without complications costs around $150. A

Caesarean section Caesarean section, also known as C-section, cesarean, or caesarean delivery, is the Surgery, surgical procedure by which one or more babies are Childbirth, delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen. It is often performed because va ...

can cost more than $1,000. Indonesia's high maternal and infant mortality rates are caused in part by these costs, which many women cannot meet. In turn, their lives and the lives of their babies are at risk. While some Indonesian celebrities and expatriates choose Bumi Sehat to birth their children and they often give donations, 80% of the families served by the clinics can barely pay anything and are helped for free.

Personal life

Lim is a U.S. citizen with deep roots in the Philippines, the homeland of her mother. Lim is a mother of eight children of her own, and an author of many books related to infant and maternal health. She became a midwife after several personal tragedies, including the death of her sister (and her baby) from complications during pregnancy, and the loss of her best friend and one of the midwives who delivered one of her own children. Lim was raised in the USA and the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

while her father was stationed in Vietnam with the U.S. military. She studied at

Santa Barbara City College Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) is a public community college in Santa Barbara, California. It opened in 1909 and is located on a campus. History Santa Barbara City College was established by the Santa Barbara High School District in 1909, m ...

. Lim and her husband, William Hemmerle, sold their home in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

and moved the family to

. Once in Bali, Lim volunteered to help local women birth their babies in various homes. As the demand for her services grew, she decided to obtain formal midwife certification. Lim is a Certified Professional Midwife with the North American Registry of Midwives. In 2003, with help from the Balinese community and donations from friends across the globe, Lim and fellow midwife Brenda Ritchmond, as well as board members; Eka Yuliani, Made Wena, and Made Sandiyasa opened the first Yayasan Bumi Sehat clinic.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lim, Robin Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American expatriates in Indonesia American people of Filipino descent American midwives American social workers American people of Chinese descent 21st-century American women