Babies!

Early yesterday morning Sedlin and I were fortunate enough to go observe two deliveries at Dr. Delson Merisier's clinic, and the experience was amazing! The first was a normal vaginal delivery and the second was a c-section, where they let us dress in gown and all and stay in the OR. Both deliveries were successful with healthy babies, one a boy and the other a girl and they were so cute. It was just so astounding seeing the births and realizing that something so small and fragile will one day develop into a full-grown human being. I was also surprised to hear the first mother and baby would have to leave the clinic after 6 hrs, and apparently the support system for learning to care for the baby usually comes from the community or family members like mothers/grandmothers. Clearly the lack of health facilities for newborns and the often absence of proper health education has in part led to Haiti's Infant mortality rank of 159/197 with a mortality rate of 70 per 1000 births. (Most high income countries like the US and European countries have a rate less than 10, thank you wikipedia). I'll be honest and say that for myself sometimes reading stats like that on infant mortality while in global health classes can seem redundant at times and appear distanced to me living in safety in the US, but experiencing those two successful births and hearing how others so often can go wrong really brings the reality of the numbers to life. It also adds to the motivation for conducting this maternal mortality project and the safe motherhood project that others are doing in the hope that the new health center will provide many health needs and educational services to reduce such ridiculous and preventable health statistics.

Here are some pics from the past few weeks:

From left to right is me, Dr. Delson, and Sedlin, ready to enter the OR right behind us for the C-section. Dr. Najita Chakhtoura, an MD ob-gyn from the US working on the Safe Motherhood project, assissted Dr. Delson

The baby girl delivered by c-section

The road next to the hospital after one really long thunderstorm overnight. There were basically like minirivers flowing down some streets, which we at times walked through to conduct interviews

One of the many USAID shelters we see out in the field. Sometimes families of like 7 or 8 or more live inside

A fun Clown's without Borders program at a local school camp (you may think I'm joking but clowns without borders is a real organization!)

A view from the coast which is about an hour walk from our hospital

left to right is Seldin, me, Jen, Nadine, and Steph. The water was incredibly warm and unfortunately couldn't offer any relief from the sweltering heat

Me and our translator Valery (see the resemblance to Eddie Murphy?)