I arrived at work this morning and the night midwife called me to see this baby. It had been born 3 weeks ago at home and had been admitted over the weekend with these massive necrotising lesions all over its little body.
The mum was a masai woman sitting there on the bed with her red tartan wrapped round her and her decorative earrings hanging from her overstretched lobes.
This poor little thing was so ill looking. Had a roaring temperature and was so wasted. Immediately after assessing the baby we got the mum to express some milk so that we could top the baby up. Despite being on the breast all the time the baby was not actually sucking effectively.
The Mum was a champion expresser. In no time at all she had 30mls and again was a dab hand at cup feeding her baby.
I just love it when you think you are really going to need to teach a mum how to do something, and then you ask her to do it, via an interpreter of course and she is a total pro!
So off the mum went diligently expressing and feeding her baby every 2 hours.
They needed to be transferred to Mount Meru Hospital , which is the regional hospital as we could not offer the care they needed.
So there I am cruising along in my little Rav 4, with Dorah my midwife colleague heading off to Mount Meru hospital with these 2 beautifully clad masai ladies in the back. And a little masai baby bundled and snuggled right up with its Mum.
The Granny was telling Dorah how she had never been to Arusha despite only living about 40km away. She felt very apprehensive about travelling into town.
I was chuckling to myself because between Dorah, a Tanzanian midwife, these 2 masai ladies and myself, a South African we managed to all get the giggles about Granny being overwhelmed by the sights of Arusha.
At the hospital we left the mum in casualty to be seen by the Dr. Dorah and I then went to see the neonatal unit and labour ward. Amazing what I find interesting . It is a very busy unit. Up to 30 births a night with 4 midwives on duty. The place was light and clean, first impression really not to bad.
The delivery room had 10 beds together. Have to admit I don't think I have ever seen so many labouring woman in one room in my life.
The neonatal unit seemed organised and the nurses were in attendance. I will surely go back to follow up on this little one, but really wonderful to know that there is somewhere we can transfer babies to that the care looks like it will benefit the babies.
So this is the life here it seems. Always new experiences and trying to savour them along the way.
The mum was a masai woman sitting there on the bed with her red tartan wrapped round her and her decorative earrings hanging from her overstretched lobes.
This poor little thing was so ill looking. Had a roaring temperature and was so wasted. Immediately after assessing the baby we got the mum to express some milk so that we could top the baby up. Despite being on the breast all the time the baby was not actually sucking effectively.
The Mum was a champion expresser. In no time at all she had 30mls and again was a dab hand at cup feeding her baby.
I just love it when you think you are really going to need to teach a mum how to do something, and then you ask her to do it, via an interpreter of course and she is a total pro!
So off the mum went diligently expressing and feeding her baby every 2 hours.
They needed to be transferred to Mount Meru Hospital , which is the regional hospital as we could not offer the care they needed.
So there I am cruising along in my little Rav 4, with Dorah my midwife colleague heading off to Mount Meru hospital with these 2 beautifully clad masai ladies in the back. And a little masai baby bundled and snuggled right up with its Mum.
The Granny was telling Dorah how she had never been to Arusha despite only living about 40km away. She felt very apprehensive about travelling into town.
I was chuckling to myself because between Dorah, a Tanzanian midwife, these 2 masai ladies and myself, a South African we managed to all get the giggles about Granny being overwhelmed by the sights of Arusha.
At the hospital we left the mum in casualty to be seen by the Dr. Dorah and I then went to see the neonatal unit and labour ward. Amazing what I find interesting . It is a very busy unit. Up to 30 births a night with 4 midwives on duty. The place was light and clean, first impression really not to bad.
The delivery room had 10 beds together. Have to admit I don't think I have ever seen so many labouring woman in one room in my life.
The neonatal unit seemed organised and the nurses were in attendance. I will surely go back to follow up on this little one, but really wonderful to know that there is somewhere we can transfer babies to that the care looks like it will benefit the babies.
So this is the life here it seems. Always new experiences and trying to savour them along the way.
Love it and you :-)
ReplyDeleteBrilliant account - love it! xo Gil
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