Another day

Hello everyone,
Today when we walked in the labour room, there was not one patient. The nurses were cleaning and dusting, something that rarely gets done. Some men came in to wash the floors. I spent some of the time in the computer room because there was nothing to do. But when I went and checked how things were going, a nurse told me that a woman was about to have her baby in the female ward (postpartum ward), where no delivery equipment is set up. This woman delivered twins vaginally. We were expecting these babies to be 30 weeks according to the woman's history. But the babies were born a good size (i don't know the weights). I would estimate they were 36 weeks which is considered term for twins. Taking women's health histories is really difficult for the nurses, they have to repeat questions and patients are unaware of how their bodies work and don't always know when their last menstrual period was, etc. Anyhow, a beautiful baby girl was born first, head down. Then they broke the waters of the second baby and did a breech extraction. The second baby was handed to me, limp. I had to run to the labour and delivery room to have access to the resuscitation equipment. While i was running the baby started to become a bit more vigorous. He did well. When I went back to help the nurse that was attending the mom (slight postpartum hemorrhage) Leah was observing the babies and noticed that twin A was not opening her eyes and making a repetitive sucking motion that you couldn't stop if u held her face. (I know all the midwives heart rates are racing now). And so this baby was having seizures. The baby was brought to the nursery. I am not sure what kind of treatment she will be able to receive here.

In the nursery I saw the other 2 twins (the ones born on the crazy day). The one that weighed 900g now weighs 960g. Which is great. We usually expect babies to loose in the first few days.

Later on we saw a c-section for fetal distress, everything was being done in slow motion (at least to my standards). And then when the baby was being intubated for meconium, the suction machine wasn't working. GUH!

The nurse-midwives from the states do shifts that starts right after ours. Last night they had a client who came in with a fetal arm coming out of her vagina. This can be incredibly dangerous, as the umbilical cord can come out or be compressed and therefore not oxygenate the baby. The nurse midwives thought for sure this baby was dead, but she was born perfect!!! and crying. Little miracles!

Yesterday on my day away from the labour ward, Leah attended 3 normal births (normal meaning for the standards here, probably all inductions). She caught one baby and for another one got to call a student to catch, but was "preceptoring".

Tonight we are having some kind of party with doctors at the guest house.

Filip, Leah and I are planning on going to Varanasi next week. If you know anything about the place let us know what we should check out.

Miss you all!
Keep the emails coming.
xoxo
Lyly