Sick Babies

It was Tuesday morning when I walked into a small concrete/dirt, dark, hot home. This was the home of the twins James and Jasmine...and many other children. Sounds of a crying toddler in the back room separated by a dingy curtain filled my ears. I glanced to my left and noticed a small girl who looked about 4, but was probably 7yrs. old scrubbing dishes on the floor. There was a kettle on a hot coal fire cooking the family’s rice in the corner of the floor. Is that the only food they have? I left with Normi that morning with plans of doing a postpartum visit to Maribel, the mother who gave birth to James and Jasmine about 3 weeks ago, little did I know that this is where her, her husband and their 10 children lived. Pushed up against the right wall of the house was a small wooden bed where Maribel and her twin babies were laying. At first glance over the twins I noticed immediately that they were both very sick and desperately needed to be bathed. While I was doing vitals on the mother and babies all the other 8 children were staring at me wide eyed, isn’t it a school day? Unfortunately these kids don’t get to go to school, soley because they were born into this very poor family. Little James was just laying on the bed loosely wrapped in a dirty blanket with his head turned to the side, eyes open and mouth gaped open trying to breathe through his very snotty nose. When I picked him up he would not respond to my voice or touch, his goopy eyes had the look of suffering in them.  I could hear fluid in his lungs. He hadn’t even gained an ounce of weight since birth. Was he going to die? Jasmine didn’t seem as sick but had the same snotty nose, raspy sounding lungs and hadn’t gained any more weight than James did. I didn't realize that she wasn’t wearing a diaper under her dingy blanket, and could feel warm fluid running down my legs. She was peeing on me! Oh well... Is their mom to ignorant to realize her babies are very sick, why didn't she contact us at all or take them in to see the doctor? Upon talking to Maribel I realized that yeah, she knew her precious babies were sick, but what could she or her husband do about it? They have no money to take them to a doctor much less buy medicine. The contract the husband had where he worked had expired leaving him with no job. Their older children were providing the only income for this family. The mother was giving the babies some liquid vitamins hoping they would get better on their own, that’s all she knew to do... Upon also examining Maribel I noticed that she was just as sick as her babies! She had this horrible cough, was extremely stressed/tired, still bleeding from birth, and producing hardly any breast milk for the twins. Wow, all three of them needed to see a doctor ASAP. I left the home with a feeling of sorrow in my heart. In a country where using any form of birth control is looked down upon due to 95% of the population being catholic, where abortion is truly illegal, and there is absolutely no financial government help, this is the situations family get stuck into.

I walked back to the clinic and immediately told my preceptor Gerlene and midwife Eva about my findings. We prayed and thought about it, and came to the conclusion that we would take the mother and babies to the doctor the very next day and pay for everything, including the tricy ride...the doctor concluded that both the twins had severe infections, were malnourished, and the mother has severe pneumonia. We got them all the medicine that was prescribed to them and also bought some special substitute formula for the babies, meanwhile the mother will still breastfeed as much as possible. All that only cost about 1,000 pesos, which is equivalent to 25 US Dollars...It has been 3 days since and the family has been bringing the babies here every morning to get nebulised and checked on. The mother and babies seem to be slowly getting better, also the babies have both gained weight! We feel so much more at peace that we were able to help them. These twins will always stay in my heart and prayers.