Life and death

What a week this has been! Tuesday me and Liliane started in the mother and child clinic. They have a very good follow-up program for expecting mothers, new-borns and upto the kids are 5 years old. This includesn vaccination, nutrition, vital signs at the expecting mothers and extra follow-up if the baby is sick. Already on Wednesday I gave new-born babies BCG vaccine and the older kids I gave DPT. BCG is kind of hard, it should be given just right underneath the skin, and that is not easy when the baby is crying and being uneasy. But I made it on most of times:) The DPT is just intramuscular into the leg, easy.

Today has been different. If there were any medically things I feared seeing, I was pretty much cured today. Four expecting mothers were scheduled for C-section (keisersnitt) and me, Liliane and Tiril were there to watch! Don’t read further if you are a sensitive person.. the rest of this blog might be a little too much for you.

The first two got spinal anesthesia, which means that they were conscious, but couldn’t feel anything from the chest and down (or something, don’t remember how far up this kind of anesthetisa goes). The doctors and the nurses were really good, made a nice vertically cut through the abdomen into the uterus where he made a small horisontal cut. And suddenly the baby is out! Crying, breathing and kicking. The most exciting part was maybe the seconds from the baby was out to we heard a sound our could see him kick.

Baby number two, a boy, came out fine, but had water in his lounges, so the nurse had to put a tube in and absorb the fluid so he could breath proper. When his brother came we could all see that there was something wrong. He didn’t cry, didn’t kick. The doctor didn’t find any pulse, and he was declared dead. He was cleaned and wrapped into a blanket and put aside his brother.

The third patient chose not to get spinal anesthesia, so she was put into full narcosis and intubation. It was so strange to see how the body lost all it’s strenght..Especially when they were finished and she was moved over from the operation table to a bed. When she was opened up there came lots and lots of water out, and the baby, a girl with a lot of hair, was crying when she came out. A good sound.

It’s amazing how the doctor can just open up, take something out and do their thing, stitch it together again, put it back into the womb and sew the skin together. Everything done in about 30 minutes!

It’s been a day with a lot of impressions. And I’m left with many “why”s on life and death.