Giving Light

To give light in Spanish means to give birth, which is very fitting as I saw my first live birth this week. Being a community health volunteer has its perks since I get to witness things that I wouldn’t normally see in the United States, namely a birth. This is how it went down:

Jessica, ob-gyn nurse: We have a patient at the health post that is going to give birth pretty soon.

Me: Cool. Could I come and watch?

Jessica: Sure, that would be fine. You can even take photos for us.

And boom, I’m right in on the action. Again, I cannot say enough how many things I do here that would not happen in the U.S. and for many of them, I’ve very thankful to be here to witness them, and photograph them to boot.

Being the youngest in a family of four, I’ve never had any younger siblings; nor do I have many young cousins, so I’ve never seen a woman giving birth before. And for those of you that know me, you know that I want to have a big family (4 or 5 kids tops), so it might be handy to see a woman in labor just to see what I would be getting myself into.

My nurses and I were hanging out at my house watching our one and only TV channel (Peruvian PBS basically), when the patient’s husband came running over to us to let us know that her labor had started. So up and out the door we went to the awaiting patient. Luckily we only had a good 10 steps to go as I live right next to the health post.

Now like I said before, I’ve never seen a birth, so I’m not sure what I was expecting. But from the movies (Shout out to “Father of the Bride”) and TV shows that I’ve seen, the typical position for a woman in labor , from what I’ve seen, is on her back, so I was a little surprised to see the woman squatting while her mother held on to her. Supposedly this position is ideal as gravity works with you instead of against to, so here I was, camera-in-hand as I stood awkwardly to the side witnessing her fight her contractions.

The nurses had laid a plastic mat on the ground to brace for “impact” of the baby covered with a few cut-up food bags to make the clean up easier. Jessica was kneeling all the while shouting “Empuje! Empuje! (Push! Push!)” while checking to see the babies progress. Before I knew it the mother pushed her last push and the baby just slid out, but again, my warped expectations told me that the baby should be crying by now, but instead there was just silence.

Doli, the other nurse, took the baby to the table immediately to start cleaning it up and taking the fluid out of the mouth and nose, but still, no crying. Minutes pass by and the baby was still not breathing and was quickly turning purple. Jessica immediately took over and started massaging the back and giving it small smacks to try to get the fluid out of the lungs, and even going so far as to start mouth to mouth breathing. Then after my prayers had been said, the baby miraculously started coughing up fluid and slowly opened its eyes. God’s miracle.

The grandmother, who was laying her daughter, who just gave birth, down to rest, came over with a smile. She sneaked a peek between the baby’s legs then walked over to the door and said with a smile to the awaiting family members “Tenemos una otra cocinera (We have another cook).” Putting Feminism aside, I simply laughed.

As time went on, the baby girl continued coughing up fluids and testing out her arms and legs in her new environment. And slowly, but surely, color came back to her cheeks and fingers. The family was then able to come in and I witnessed her family welcome her into the world.

While this birth turned had a happy ending, unfortunately so many other births in my town don’t. I was kind of surprised at the nonchalant attitude of my nurses when discussing how just the other day a baby died during labor. When I asked why that happened, they said it was mainly because the parteras or midwifes here don’t have much formal training. And all I could think of was that if this lady gave birth in her house, which many women do, her baby might have easily died if the partera didn’t know what to do when the baby came out.

Death is such a part of life here, that it doesn’t surprise people that much if a baby dies or not. And coming from a very developed nation, I keep on thinking how this would not happen in the U.S. And yes, I think our health care system is very messed up, but one thing they do well is give adequate care to patients and do anything they can to prevent a death.

Witness this birth has given me a new outlook at life and death in the sierra and also the idea to have a possible training with the midwives in the future. But the one thing that hasn’t changed is I still want those 5 kids. Well, maybe just 4.