The Miracle of Life!

What a wonderful day! Today (July 8, 2009) we ventured our way to the maternity ward of St. Tomas hospital. After a short tour of the other units in the hospital we made our way to the birthing ward. There we changed into scrubs and cute little blue hats and booties, we all felt back at home in our scrubs. We ventured through to the little changing room to the birthing area. It was a large room of about 14 beds lined around the wall, and the nursing station is in the middle. There were 3 nurses in the room, with lots of students and doctors running around. It was interesting to see the different ways the women handled the pain and contractions. Some of the women were screaming while others sat and closed their eyes to take in the pain. Our Professora Lucero mentioned to us that the silent women were indigenous Indians and in their culture, they are expected to endure the pain without making any "dramatic" noises. She also mentioned that you have to really watch these patients because they might have birth on the bed instead of in the actual birthing room. We got to observe all of the people running around checking the heart rates of the babies and checking the dilation of the mothers. It was quite overwhelming and chaotic to see all of the women in labor. Once a mother was deemed to be ready to give birth they wheeled her to the birthing room, a somewhat operating room with an incubator area to check and clean the baby. As we were watching and observing one of the women was wheeled to the room, not but a minute after they draped the cloth over her, the baby started coming out. It was quite a miracle to see, and even more amazing that the mother barely made a noise. Once the baby arrived into the world, a loud cry emerged into the room, and the mother had received a baby boy, her fifth child. Once the baby’s umbilical cord was clipped, he was immediately taken to the incubator area and the doctor suctioned the nose and cleaned up his body, all the while inspecting and listening. This little boy was 37 weeks and was going to need a little extra attention, but should be heading home in the next couple days. In all, it was a wonderful experience. I never thought that I have such an opportunity on this trip. The joy that the mother had and the beauty of a brand new life was enough to make any one smile. It makes me even more interested in labor and delivery.