After a life of wandering, Anne Lorient helps homeless women give birth on the streets of Paris

Male violence, lack of contraception… The number of homeless pregnant women explodes in Paris, according to the latest report from the Abbé-Pierre foundation. To help them give birth to their child, when they do not give birth in the maternity ward by choice or by necessity, some call on Anne Lorient.

She is one of five street birth attendants of the capital. Paris news met her in her HQ, a bistro opposite the Guy-Môquet metro station, in the 18th arrondissement.

Giving birth on the asphalt of Paris

She crosses Paris at any time of the day or night. Called by a woman, a community or the emergency services – everyone knows her telephone number – Anne Lorient is the one who resolves the situations. “Last week it happened under a bus shelter, it looked like a film, she recalls. The police called me because the officers couldn’t communicate with a woman who was in labor. She came from Colombia and did not speak French. The situation was starting to degenerate…”

That was good, I spent years in Latin America. I was able to talk to her, defuse the situation, help her, then she left with her healthy child. That’s my role, to be by their side when they are most vulnerable, to reassure them.

In the month of May, these are eighteen babies who were born under his gaze.

“Where they give birth, nothing is sterile”

Things seem obvious for the fifty-year-old who helps women give birth to children on the Parisian asphalt, in the parkings where the squats. “Where they give birth, nothing is sterilebut, at least, the babies have one strong immune system“, she assures.

The emergency midwife experienced in her flesh the violence of an unexpected birth, in the middle of the street, while she herself was homeless. “My first son was born after pregnancy denial. I got up, shaken by severe pain, and he literally fell,” she testifies with the disconcerting ease of the stories we are used to repeating.

The one who lived seventeen years on the street has drawn up a book from this journey, My barbaric years (published by La Martinière, 2016). It was during the publication of this work that she took the alias “Lorient”, to protect herself from her brothers while she recounted the rapes of which she was a victim in her childhood.

Today, Anne Lorient lives in an apartment in the north of Paris, but keeps her connection with the outside world viscerally attached. Trained by the Red Cross and nourished by her own experience, she took on the role of midwife after discovering the body ofa woman who died in childbirth in a squat. The unacceptable as a driving force.

“In the street, there is no resuscitation service”

“As an emergency midwife, I am there to guide them if necessary. I can react in the event of an umbilical cord around the neck, help with the expulsion of the placenta, but I do not practice no surgical procedure. My mission is also to call for help when necessary,” she says. Thanks to equipment donated by firefighters from Paris – with whom she has a direct line – and pharmacies, she can provide first aid.

Unattended pregnancies, traumatic journeys, health problems… “Out of ten births, eight go well”, breathes Anne Lorient who remains upset by the death a year ago almost to the day of a newborn whose lungs do not had not developed. “In the street, there is no resuscitation service. »

We are on the border of legality and some professionals tell me that I must protect myself in the event that a birth goes badly and the mother blames me, but I prefer to take the risk than to surrender. guilty of failure to assist a person in danger.

THE seven other birth attendants street attacks (four in Paris, one in Corsica, and as many in Marseille and Nantes) have so far never been prosecuted, according to Anne Lorient. “We communicate with each other on a WhatsApp loop, especially for questions about equipment and feedback,” she confides.

Work completed by “flying midwives”

On the institutional side, the City of Paris has equipped itself with a “ flying midwife » to intervene in day centers or in street situations. In 2023, the ARS Île-de-France co-financed a second midwife position dedicated to these actions outside the walls, indicates the institution Paris news.

Seine-Saint-Denis and Hauts-de-Seine have also created similar positions with midwives and childcare workers.

“But women who give birth in the street trust me because they know I’ve been there. Some do not want to be found by their family or fear that their child will be entrusted to child welfare,” adds Anne Lorient who, unlike flying midwives, does not carry out gynecological follow-up.

150 babies born in the street

Each year in the Paris region, there are nearly 150 babies born in the street, or one birth every two days, according to his estimates. Anne Lorient has helped give birth to “a good hundred” since she began her priesthood two years ago.

A mission which is recognized as being of interest by the highest levels. On June 7, she was interviewed by Dominique Vérien, president of the Delegation for Women’s Rights in the Senate. A source of pride for those who work with women stuck in the blind spot of public policies.

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