New Delhi, Aug. 31 -- On a cold morning, Ntlhane Sehloho grabbed his backpack containing medical equipment and embarked on a three-hour journey, navigating the curving gravel roads leading to a clinic nestled in a valley of mountainous Lesotho.

Sehloho has an almost unheard-of role in this part of the world: male midwife.

His arrival at the Mpharane Health Center in the southern African kingdom is met with a sigh of relief from several women, some of them pregnant. Others carry crying babies on their backs.

Midwifery has been traditionally viewed as women's work in Lesotho, but a growing number of men are joining the profession as the country tries to bring down its high rate of deaths around childbirth. For every 100,000 live births, ...