Babies, babies, babies....

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Brittany, Kristi and I returned back to the maternity unit today. Earlier in the morning we got to assist with the prenatal advice again and then towards the afternoon there were two mothers who were close to giving birth so we headed to the birthing suite.


When we got there it was empty. It's a new suite, just built, and it was completely empty and covered in dust. So we went to work and scrubbed it down and set the room up with beds and all of the other equipment they needed. We moved the mothers into the suite around the corner.


It's interesting to see how unconcerned Ugandans are with the patients. They made the mothers walk through the hospital to the beds in the new suite on a still wet freshly mopped floor. One of the mothers started to really push right after we got her into the suite. We sat there for hours waiting for something to happen. The baby seemed stuck. You could see the child starting to crown but only to a point. I felt do bad for the mother. She was in so much pain. We asked if they give pain meds here and they laughed at us. Mothers don't get epidurals here for pain.


Anyways, finally after a couple hours the OBGYN came in and said that he thought she was going to need help. The other mother started pushing at that time as well. After an hour the mother who started later successfully gave birth. The OBGYN walked in around that time and said he was going to get the other baby out. He grabbed a suction cup contraption, different that the ones in the US and placed it on the babies head. Then he started trying to pull the baby out. I was amazed at how forceful it was. He literally had a leg pressing against the bed for resistance and two hands pulling the suction cup thing. He was pulling with everything he had. Finally after about five minutes of that and the mother wincing in pain he grabbed a razor blade and did an episiotomy.... All without pain meds. It looked so painful. Finally the baby popped out.


A third lady came in shortly after to give birth as well and hers was amazingly easy. In and out within an hour. All in all the day was successful, and it was so fun helping with the births.

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