More fun with midwifery...

Hello again...I always know that when I sit down to blog that we will get busy. I was right. We now have 2 mamas "on deck". Two first time mamas. The first was here all night, just sleeping mostly, with very light contractions. We gave her castor oil to get things going and now she seems to be having stronger contractions. The other mama was here last night for her regular exam. I did the exam, so it was cool she came in today while I was here. Now, we wait.
I wanted to show you this picture of a family waiting for their turn at prenatal clinic. I love her belly in the foreground. We saw 40 women last night in just over 2 hours. Rockin!
One pet project of mine has been to train the untrained birth assistants that are here. As I may have mentioned, there is really no structure for education. Technically, it is not a training facility. And yet, the clinic asks for untrained people to volunteer. This is a shame in my eyes for volunteers to be here without getting the least bit of basic childbirth education...so, of course, that is where I come in. Megan and Emily are participating in an "internship" that has turned out to be very unstructured and without a real preceptor. I am trying to get them more involved and educated. It is a shame to be attending births and not even understand some of the basics. So, Emily did her first vaginal exam today. She was so excited, and she did really well. She was dead on, the mama was at 2cm and slightly effaced...and she called it! We have been spending a little time most days just talking about birth, I answer questions, demonstrate things, etc. It has been great to offer this because now they are getting so much more out of their time here.
Up next...pics of the pediatric clinic. Here is Yvette, she is a massage therapist that does infant massage. She is massaging Komang, a sweet little dude who is almost 4 years old, believe it or not. He was born without event and then around 3 months, something seemed wrong. His muscles began to atrophy and his growth slowed dramatically. He can't speak, his head has flattened from spending so much time on his back, he can't crawl. He can only eat softened foods. He doesn't seem to have any very serious health issues otherwise. He is mentally disabled. It was so wonderful to watch him be massaged. The first thing he did was urinate because he got so relaxed. He made beautiful eye contact with Yvette and seemed positively stimulated by the massage. She also did some therapeutic exercises with his arms and legs and taught the mother how to do them herself at home. He needs to be massaged, exercised and stimulated because he is incapable of normal movements that develop the muscles, strengthen the bones and encourage blood flow.

I had such a great morning working in the pediatric clinic. We had lots of babies come in with miscellaneous, minor problems. Some conjunctivitis, a small fatty cyst on a penis, colds, flus and fevers. Here is a little cutey patooty (below)...This is a chunky little breastfed baby. Most of the mamas breastfeed for at least a year, often for 2 years! In the hospital the doctors get $20 US from the formula company for each mama they successfully convince to formula feed! Can you believe it? They also tell anyone who has had a cesarean that they should not breastfeed because they have had a surgery...this is horrendous! I may have mentioned this before because it is so crazy. This little one stole my heart. She loved her massage. She just had a stuffy nose, so we gave her some herbs and a massage and off she went. We sent 4 kiddos to the hospital for problems that were above and beyond our natural ways. One little guy who had jaundice ended up having Hepatitis B...poor guy! We are hoping he gets good treatment. One mama came in with her 2 year old and here new baby that was born a month ago with me! It was great to see her again and she was doing really well. Her 2 year old was the one with the fatty cyst on his penis. Poor little dude! I tell you what, there are few things more difficult than trying to get an ornery 2 year old to show his penis to perfect strangers!


















Just wanted to show you all this funny picture of me...Amazon Woman and my friend Ayu who works here at the office at the clinic. She had just returned from a funeral so she was in her temple garb that looks so pretty. Isn't she gorgeous?! It is so strange here because much of the female population here wants to lighten their skin. Skin lightening creams are heavily marketed on television. They are envious of my skin and tell me that my skin is so beautiful. Ironic isn't it? White women all want to go to the beach and get a suntan, go to tanning beds and put on tanning creams to look darker! No one is ever happy with how Mother Nature made them. Ayu isn't really one of those women. She seems comfortable in her own skin. Ayu is the aunt of the woman who had the VBAC here where we had to resuscitate the baby and was present at the birth. That was very traumatic for her. It was great that days alter, one of her cousins came in to have her baby. That second birth was a beautiful, uneventful, waterbirth which was very healing for Ayu. I have a soft spot in my heart for Ayu because we shared a very intense and troubling birth, that fortunately turned out well. I think we both feel healed now. Time to go now...love to all!