Throughout my past year in public health school I studied maternal and infant deaths, what causes them, their rate and prevalence in countries such as Kenya and the United States. It was higher in Kenya with about 45 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births. In the United States, it's 6. The number is also probably higher in Kenya as most women do not deliver in health care facilities and therefore, their infant deaths are not recorded. An intelligent professor of mine once said, "Statistics are people with tears washed away." I sat in class, took notes and had a heavy heart for such travesty in a developing nation, but last Thursday, I witnessed one of these statistics.
I woke up around 8 AM not feeling the best. As most of you know, I was diagnosed with a bacterial infection (food poisoning) on Wednesday so I figured I just needed to pop some antibitiotics. It was our last day visiting St. Damiano, a private, Catholic hospital on the edge of Bungoma. We were hoping to help out in the antenatal clinic and say good bye to the nurses who had been so kind to work with us. I took my first dose of Flagyl that morning and headed out with Alyssa around 9. By the time we arrived, I was feeling worse. I hadn't eaten anything and my stomach was in knots. Maurine met us there and asked if we wanted to go to the Theatre; i.e. operating room. She mentioned there was a cesarean section happening.
I immediately started to feel better at the thought of witnessing my favorite procedure: a birth. We dressed in OR scrubs and boots and eagerly headed towards the sound of the cauterizer. Just as we entered, the 2 doctors were removing the baby. They handed him off to another doctor who brought him over to the warmer bed. No crying. This was typical, I thought, with c-section babies and from what I had seen in the past. They neede some stimulation and a little foot tickle.
2 minutes later, still no crying. The doctor was rubbing the infant as if he was washing a t-shirt; vigorously and rapidly. Still no sound. Then out came the oxgen mask. I was starting to get worried. Then CPR. Then intubation. I couldn't watch. I suddenly felt weak and walked out to the room in between the OR and hallway. The only sound I could hear was the mother's vital monitor. Beep, Beep, Beep.
"I should be hearing a baby cry," I thought as I sunk down to the floor. Alyssa came out to check on me and looked confused, "How long do they have?" she asked. I just shook my head. As they kept working on the baby for about 10 minutes I kept praying for a cry, a wimper, some sort of life. I couldn't go back in the room.
Moments of working in the Mother/Baby Unit flashed through my mind. Ecuadorian maternity wards followed. In the 100 live births I had seen, all the babies had cried. All had been the miracle of life.
Finally, after almost 20 minutes, the doctor and Maurine walked out and took off their gloves. I could barely ask the question, "What's going on?" The doctor bowed his head and shook it back and forth, "He didn't make it." As heartbroken, sad and shocked as I was I wanted to know why. He explained that the mother experienced antepartum hemmorhage (bleeding due to the distachment of the placenta). She had delayed her arrival to the hospital and by the time they had her hooked up to a monitor, the baby's heartbeat was barely audible. They decided to perform an emergency c-section but it was too late, the baby had been without oxygen for too long.
As we stood up to leave, I felt sick to my stomach. I quickly disrobed and walked outside into the fresh air. I didn't make it 10 feet before I vomited. Alyssa quickly came to my side and I started crying. I couldn't belive what I had just witnessed. In all my years working and volunteering with delivering mothers, I had never seen a stillbirth. And it was because the woman couldn't get to the hospital on time. Because the roads are covered with potholes and uneven terrain. Because she didn't have the education that if you bleed during pregnancy you should immediately go to the emergency room. Because poverty, in its many forms, has claimed the lives of too many mother and children.
No comments:
Post a Comment