Baby Marvin
Doing the Neonatal Exam
Taking his measurements
Trying to find his pulse!
Checking his stepping reflex!
He wasn't enjoying the exam!
So I tried to comfort him!
Eye Ointment
Vitamin K Injection
Bath Time
I think I should put an explicit lyrics warning on this!!! Oh, it’s not a song! Ok, explicit description!! Don’t read before eating!! :P LOL
DJ shook me awake this morning to say that Ate Cecil texted and asked if we could come to her place to help with a labor. The Patient was 6cm already so we tried to hurry. I had a really fast shower and while I was packing my bag, Ate Cecil texted again that the patient was now 10cm!! We ran out the door and started looking for a taxi!! In the hurry I forgot my hair brush and water!! The 2 things I really wanted to bring!! When you see my hair in the pictures you’ll see why I wished that I’d brought my hair brush!! Ha ha ha!! We got there before the baby was born, but unfortunately we also made it in time to help clean up all the poo that the patient was pushing out!! A few times I had to tell myself, “No, you will not throw up!! Deal with it!!” Because of the lack of supplies, the soiled sheets and absorbent bed pad are not removed until after the baby is born so the smell stays the whole time!! And the baby is born on top of the poo!! L If I had known some of these things I would have tried to bring more of the absorbent bed pads with me!! Another thing is that laundry is done mostly by hand so it’s a lot of work to wash extra sheets and bed pads!
Baby Marvin made his appearance at 9:18am this morning! He had an unusually short cord that was wrapped around his neck, but we were able to slip it off! His mom needed a lot of encouragement to push out the shoulders and it seemed to take forever! Ate Cecil waited awhile for the cord to stop pulsating before I got to cut it!! The idea is that the baby will receive the rest of the blood and nutrients from the placenta if we wait to cut the cord until after it has stopped pulsating! For this to be effective though, the baby needs to be held lower than the cord. So the baby was lying on the same bed pad that was covered in poo and blood and then he peed and pooed to add to the assortment of bodily fluids that were pooled there!!! Kadiri!! That means gross in Tagalog!!
After I cut the cord, I clamped and cut the baby’s cord and then I got the baby!! I was going to catch the placenta but it was taking a long time to come out so I opted for cuddling with the baby while Ate Cecil took over with the mom! After 20mins and the placenta didn’t seem to be coming at all, I suggested that the baby breast feed! They agreed so we helped the mom to hold the baby. Breastfeeding helps the uterus to contract and push out the placenta. If the baby isn’t able to breastfeed or in the sad event that the baby died, L the breasts can be manually stimulated to help the uterus contract. This also works well during labor. The baby didn’t seem to keen on feeding that much at this time so I got him back while they tried other positions for the mom. The placenta finally came out over an hour after the baby had been born!! The placenta usually comes out within 5-30 minutes after the baby and 1 hour is about the longest you would want to wait! All the women are given a shot of pitocin after the baby is born to help their uterus contract and help prevent hemorrhaging, but sometimes this is not enough. When the placenta comes out, it is checked carefully to make sure that no pieces could be left inside the mom. If that happens, the body will bleed and bleed to try and get rid of what it considers a foreign object and then the mom could bleed to death!! Hemorrhaging is one of the top 4 reasons why women of child bearing age, are dying in the world today!
1 woman dies every minute of child birth or related causes somewhere in the developing world!!
This is an insanely large number!! Learning about this is one of the reasons why I wanted to be here studying about childbirth! To help prevent these unnecessary deaths!!
This is the number one need in the developing world today!!!
Just thought I would share that because it’s something that I am passionate about! And until studying Primary Health Care at the University of the Nations, YWAM, Hawaii, last year, I was unaware of how high these statistics were!!
Back to Baby Marvin. He got a brief bath and then I did the neonatal exam. He was perfect, no abnormalities. But he really liked being held and disliked me injecting him with Vitamin K and measuring and weighing him!! So I cuddled him lots after to make up for it!! Thank you, Lord, for another baby brought safely into this world!
This is some information I found on the WHO website which I pasted at the bottom!! Please check it out!!!
WHO / MPS
Every day, 1500 women die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications. In 2005, there were an estimated 536 000 maternal deaths worldwide. Most of these deaths occur in the developing world and most of them are avoidable.
(1) Improving maternal health is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the international community at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.
Where do maternal deaths occur?
The incidence of maternal death is inequitably spread throughout the world reflecting the gap between rich and poor. A woman's lifetime risk of maternal death is one in 75 in the developing regions, compared to one in 7300 in developed regions. In Niger one in seven women dies of pregnancy-related complications. By contrast, in Ireland a woman's risk of maternal death is one in 48 000. (2)
Developing countries account for 99% of all maternal deaths worldwide. More than half of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, one third in South Asia.
WHO / Marie-Agnes Heine
Most maternal deaths are avoidable as the medical solutions to prevent or manage the fatal causes are well known. Skilled care at birth can make the difference between life and death. For instance, if unattended, severe bleeding in the third stage of labour can kill even a healthy woman within two hours. An injection of the drug oxytocin given immediately after childbirth reduces the risk of bleeding very effectively.
Sepsis, the second most frequent cause of maternal death, can be widely reduced if aseptic techniques are respected. The third-cause, pre-eclampsia, is a common hypertensive disorder in pregnancy, which can be monitored. Although pre-eclampsia cannot be completely cured before the delivery, the administration of drugs like magnesium sulfate can lower a woman's risk of developing convulsions (eclampsia), which can be fatal. Another frequent cause of maternal death, obstructed labour, can be prevented or managed by skilled birth attendants. Obstructed labour occurs when the fetus' head is too big compared to the mother's pelvis or if the baby is abnormally positioned. A simple tool to identify problems in labour early is the partograph, a graph of progress of labour and the maternal and fetal condition. Skilled practitioners can use the partograph to recognize and deal with slow progress before labour becomes obstructed, and, if necessary, refer the woman to caesarean section.
Why do mothers not get the care they need?
WHO / Jim Holmes
In 2006, only about 60% of deliveries in developing countries were assisted by a skilled birth attendant. This can be translated into 50 million home deliveries that were not assisted by skilled health personnel. The coverage ranges from 34% in Eastern Africa to 93% in South America. (4) The coverage of antenatal care varies too. In Peru, 87% of pregnant women had at least four antenatal care visits, whereas in Ethiopia the coverage was only 12%. (5)
There are many reasons why women do not receive the care they need before, during and after childbirth. In some remote areas, there may be no availability of professional care. Or, if available, the care may not be good. In other cases, the women may lack access to health facilities, because there is no transportation available or because they cannot afford to pay the costs of the transport or the health services' user-fees. Also cultural beliefs or a woman's low status in society can prevent a pregnant woman from getting the care she needs. To improve maternal health, gaps in the capacity and quality of health systems and barriers to accessing health services must be identified and tackled at community level. http://www.who.int/making_pregnancy_safer/topics/maternal_mortality/en/index.html
1 comment:
Very interesting picture! Congratulation for your newborn...
Keep posting,
MATERNAL HEALTH
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