Zelda told me a baby had just been born with an emphalacele, which is an opening at the umbilicus that the intestines protrude out of. This baby will need surgery and that means going to PAP and there is a question whether or not the family can come up with the money for both transport and the surgery. The baby also appears to have some other chromosomal abnormalities. The hospital is fortunate to have a pediatric resident from Ireland helping out and she will do the follow-up.
Later in the day, Dr. Alice Hirata came back from mobile clinic with a patient who was 32 weeks pregnant, an unusually large abdomen for the dates, and a suspicious mass in her uterus. After getting a second opinion from Dr. Eads, they decided this woman has a baby with a neural tube abnormality, similar to hydraencephaly where the brain is displaced with an abnormal amount of fluid. So that baby will not live after birth.
One has to wonder if the poor nutrition in the impoverished areas of rural Haiti makes these kinds of abnormalities more frequent. It gives us more motivation to get education about nutrition, multi-vitamins, iron, and worm treatment to more women earlier in their pregnancies.
One thing that stands out to us is the stoic way these Haitian women accept the fact that they have a baby that will probably not survive. It is almost as if they have braced themselves for it ahead of time and they are not surprised. Not like we would be in the U.S. where we see abnormalities less frequently, expect a healthy baby every time, and ask for the answer to why if it does not happen.
It makes me think about the issue of control and how we live in the U.S. with the perception that we can control so much of our lives. Here in Haiti they to do not assume they have control. They are willing to think that curses, voodoo, and God controls their life and seem to have a lot less stress as a result. We worry about preventing cancer and preventing accidents, and want to know what we did wrong when things did not go as planned. They seem to accept that they are not in control. In some ways, I envy their ability to lay the blame anywhere but on themselves.
We also worry about the future much more than they do. They are grateful for food and life one day at a time. This makes problems for us when we think they should do long-term planning. But we could learn from them also that most of the things we worry about in the future we have little control over today. It would add to the joy of our days.
Today Sarah Taylor talked with the students and learned some more traditional postpartum practices that are common here. They believe that pinching a baby's cheeks frequently helps it get dimples, pulling on a baby's penis makes it get longer, and sitting over steaming water after birth helps the vagina heal tighter and smaller. The latter has been the cause of 3rd degree burns so there was some teaching to be done about the harm that some traditions have caused.
I am continually humbled by the fact that there is so much to learn about this culture, that I have so little understanding of their beliefs and world view. It is important for us to recognize that we have much to learn, to stay humble, to open ourselves to learn about how they view their problems. Otherwise, we will throw up our hands in frustration and give up. Lots of NGO's have come to Haiti and have done just that. We are saving lives of women and babies daily so we cannot afford to stop learning how we can be more effective in our work here.
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