As we quickly near the end of this year, we wanted to give you a little insight into what we have been doing. This is the first year we have worked on statistics and we are learning as we go. So as not to overburden you with information, we decided to focus on the appointments and births from the last 4 years:
Appointment History: (Prenatals, Births, Postpartum, Nutrition, General Medicine)
As you can see we are far from being a "High Volume" birth center, but this year has been one of our busiest years so far with 582 opportunities to care for women and babies both physically and spiritually.
I would attribute the increase in prenatal appointments to the Pandemic and the general fear of hospital care among families. Unfortunately, many of these women arrived in our care during their last 2 months of pregnancy when lack of prenatal care has led to complications such as last trimester anemia, gestational diabetes, or developing signs of HELLP. Midwifery care is not for everyone, and we saw the need to "risk out" clients whose care needed medical attention.
We had our first experience with tele-medicine and although it was helpful in the peaks of the pandemic, it is very difficult to access proper fetal growth and position through a video-call. We have implemented PPE which is a whole new experience for midwives and women who are fleeing the hospital environment. We have used large amounts of hand soap and hand gel, bleach, and disposable PPE. We update our information as the CDC and OMS have also made updates. We have made several "batches" of cloth face masks and recently attempting to make a plastic version to provide care for a hearing impaired client who is here for her second pregnancy and relies heavily on reading lips.
This has been a weird/difficult year in general and we saw more postpartum hemorrhage than any other years, we had more cases of babies being small for gestational age (sga) and we had babies with malformations and our first stillborn. We are still unsure if these outcomes have something to do with the Pandemic, but I have heard similar cases being reported in the midwifery communities of the USA and the rest of Mexico.
This mamá is a repeat client who had a postpartum hemorrhage during this birth, but asked us to do what we had to do to control it and avoid transport. God is good, and we did some very painful procedures (not to get into details) the bleeding stopped and we were able to keep her and baby out of hospital.
Be whatever the cause, our team has taken things with stride and has grown and matured in their knowledge and practice. As to practice social distancing; our administrator overcame her fear to drive the minivan to run errands alone around town, one of our doulas bravely took on the task of reception, and we re-arranged offices and birth rooms to allow room additional distance and leave only the necessities. As midwives and doctor, we have taken out "all the tricks in the bag" to manage prenatal, labor, and postpartum complications within the scope of first level care since the mother´s have implored us NOT to take them to hospital. It has been a difficult year, but GOD has been faithful and continuously provides us with the knowledge and skill necessary to provide safe care for these families. It all has stretched us, but not broken us.
We heavily rely on the Spirit to freshen our memory and guide us through our practice. There are several scriptures that have strengthened our team throughout this year. I will leave you with a couple:
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4:18
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. 1 Peter 1:6
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence... 2 Peter 1:3
Thank you, to all our supporters for blessing both our team and the families we serve!!! You are helping us give professional maternal care and spread the love of Christ to Oaxacan families.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We pray 2021 is much less eventful!!!
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