Births at the clinic last month: 5
Births at the clinic this month already: 4(+3)
Average amount of pregnant ladies attending Prenatal Day every Wednesday: 35
Pregnant ladies sent down by ambulance this month already: 2
These numbers don’t look like much, do they? When I dream of a 24-hour birthing center built next door, with a surgical suite, OB doctor, and helicopter pad, would it be worth it? I think so, and I will tell you why.
_Have you delivered a stillborn? Or a tiny blue baby hardly breathing? Or a baby with deformities?
Have you watched a mother writhe in pain while a tiny hand with a grasp reflex is visible, trying to be born? And the mother thrashes and won’t be calmed until there is a noticeable ‘pop’ and the tiny hand turns blue and lifeless.
Have you seen a mother not eating or speaking, depressed after she fell on the slippery rocks and delivered a dead baby a few days later?
Have you picked babies up off bloody blankets on the muddy gravel outside of a locked gate, where the mother gave birth before help could come? Or the floor of an outhouse, or a porch?
Have you rushed by two tiny newborn girls being cared for on a dining room table to find a third little triplet, en-caul, and placenta already delivered on the porch floor?
Have you looked under the blankets of a mom’s bed who was carried by people to the clinic from miles away, only to see two little blue legs already there?
Have you watched a mom, one twin already delivered, bleed out in front of you, life draining from her eyes as you futilely try CPR? And then the main question you get later is why you didn’t deliver the second twin, as now the voodoo doctor must perform magic in order for them to be buried separately.
Have you done CPR on tiny bodies that you hold in your hands, foam coming out of the nose and mouth with every compression of the pliable chest?
Then there’s the girl who was told by doctors that she would need a hospital delivery, but refused to listen and wouldn’t tell us that important fact, labouring 3 days before she got to hospital, only to lose her baby.
Or the lady with pre-eclampsia/possible HELLP syndrome that got past the gangs but was shunted from hospital to hospital in the dangerous city of Port before finally delivering, saving her life but losing the baby, as it was born too early.
Ironically, as I was typing this piece, I heard the dreaded call of ‘Baby in the outhouse!’ and there was a tiny baby with a mom in pain… when we got her to our delivery room, she soon delivered another, and then a third… all too small to live with our limited resources. At approximately 6 months along, they would have been whisked off to NICU at home. But this mom hadn’t even had any prenatal care by us, never mind a Doppler ultrasound telling her she was carrying triplets. She didn’t know who the father was and had four children already.
And here I am, a cowardly hypocrite, preparing to cross a restricted international border in a time of much unrest, to get on a plane and fly over 4,000 kilometers so I can get professional prenatal care and deliver our first baby in a hospital with a NICU and operating room close by. How can I look these women in the eyes and encourage them to deliver at home if possible? It’s because the Haitian women have a better chance of getting past the gangs, if they do need emergent care, than I do. It’s because the city of Port au Prince is too dangerous for me to go to the Canadian Embassy with my baby for the needed paperwork. It’s because, as little as I know, I’m probably the most educated experienced L&D nurse within a few hours’ radius. And other reasons too.
We tell ladies to please deliver at home if there are no problems because we don’t have enough personnel here to accommodate all the babies born in Oriani, Gwo Cheval, Marie Claire, Jadin Bwa, Oplimèt, and from zones even farther away. We aim to be available for emergencies, and we try to catch potential problems in our prenatal care. We encourage monthly prenatal visits and at least one professional ultrasound. Thanks to Vitamin Angels, we have free prenatal vitamins to give to each mom. When needed and available, our ambulance takes emergencies to Fond Parisien.
_And the birthing center could have more departments, like a nutrition program and a designated contraceptive clinic. And the surgical suite could be used for other minor surgeries. And the number of staff could be such that the nurse who answered two or more emergency gate knocks in the night wouldn’t have to be the same nurse opening the clinic the next morning. A step in the right direction would be control of the gangs to open the roads for safer passage, and to improve the roads for speedier access to care. One can dream.
_A big thanks to generous donors who have enabled us to offer what we can! Please keep us in your prayers.
Carmina