Birthing in the dome

First I have to apologize for the last post. I couldn't figure out how to edit on my iPhone, so sorry for the grammatical errors!

I have been in Haiti for 5 days now. I arrived at the airport on Friday morning and was met and driven to Jacmel, normally a 2 hours drive, unpredictable these days with the rubble, the rains and landslides. I took us about 3.5 hours and we picked up a woman who had been hit by a taptap (the little vans used for public transportation) and took her to the hospital. Accidents happen alot here and often people stop at the dome to get basic first aid for their cuts and bruises. My fist day was full on, with prenatal clinic and a birth as soon as I got here! I caught this woman's 2nd baby. Her first one died at 1yr age from diarrhea, a unfortunately an all too common occurrence. She was strong inher labour, walking around the dome, but even though she was fully dilated, she didn't seem to want to push. All of a sudden her water broke and the baby was born with the next contraction. I am learning so many herbal and alternative remedies, including yunyan baiyo for decreasing bleeding and cord burning, a technique of cutting the cord that has lead to decrease in cord infections. A public health nurse friend of mine from Canada was doing a needs assessment in hospitals in Port au Prince and shared a story of a 1 week old baby she saw, dying of tetnus from a cord infection.

The weekend was busy with births, some of which I went to and others the other midwives, Tania and Kelly did. This weekend, Kelly will head back to the States and it will just be Tania and I. We get women dropping in he clinic day and night with different pains, which lately have been alot of urinary tract infections. The worst part of weekend was this woman who came in I the midst of chaos and I thoughtshe had a bladder infection, she came back the next morning thinking she was in labour, which she was. Her BP (for those who like details!) was 140/120, which is way to high for anyone, but with a pregnant mama it rstricts blood flow to baby and can cause all kids of problems for both mum and babe. I quickly got her to the hospital, after much confusion, becaus out car wouldn't star, she didn't want to ride on the back of a moto (the most popular way to get around) and so we finally hailed a random car and they picked us up. Unlike many other places, the hospital is super close, 5-10 mins. Nonetheless we found out today the baby did of survive the birth. The woman was 14 years old and 7 months pregnant. Some other woman who lost their babies at birth have continued to see us for postpartum care, I hope she does. Unfortunately before I saw her about the ?bladder infection, she had not had any antenatal care. Another all too common story here in Haiti.

Monday we had pediatric clinic and I saw a few mums and babies who had birthed with Bumi, and I saw olde kids. There was a woman with 5 kids who came with them all,she and her mother-in-law live in a tent with all the kids dice her husband died what Haitians call le catastrophe. I also saw a mama who thought she was in labour, who was pregnant for the 4th time, each of the other pregnancies ending in miscarriages at 7months, 5months and 4months. We communicated in Spanish because she usually lives in the Dominican Republic, as many Haitians do to earn money.

I has been ridiculously hot, something like 38degrees in the dome during the day. I have sweat pouring off me, but imagine the labouring women! There are solar powered fans for the windows of the dome, but they are stuck in Philiadelphia, because shipping has become very beaucratic these days, a source of great frustration for anyone trying to do relief and development work.

I will write again soon, with the intermittant Internet! Thanks to everyone again for helping me get here, this is exactly where I need to be right now!