Birth Number Five

Many of the midwives are away at a conference over the next few days, so there are only a few left!

First of all today the doctor called me over to see a jaundice baby. She explained that it tends to begin in the eyes and the head, and becomes most serious when it reached the hands. Most babies tend to be jaundice at birth however if they aren’t over it in a couple of days, it tends to be more serious. She showed me that if you press down on the  baby’s skin where there is jaundice, it looks more yellow but if you press where it’s not, it is more white. A blood sample was taken and placed in the centrifuge to separate it and then placed in the machine to measure the level of bilirubin (the yellow compound that causes jaundice). Thankfully this baby’s level had decreased after photo therapy treatment – where the baby is placed under blue light.

I then was present at a newborn screening – in the UK we call it a heel prick test. The baby’s heel is pricked with a (fairly nasty) needle to extract blood which is dropped onto a number of circles – the foot never touches the paper so the blood must drop onto it. This tests for a number of illnesses and also at this time we extracted blood to do a bilirubin test for jaundice. Tends to be fairly horrible because it’s obviously not nice for the baby – they try to calm it as much as they can e.g. by breastfeeding.

you can see the big brother in the background checking his sibling is ok!

I was then able to see another birth! Due to the majority of the midwives being away, we are having some extra help from another clinic so we had another American student with us. She is studying to be a midwife but had never caught a baby before so she was able to get that opportunity which was amazing. She cried as she guided the baby out and it was a beautiful moment for everyone involved!! It was another boy so that brings my total to 4 boys and 1 girl.

Today we also found out that transfers count for Rebecca’s births! (She needs 100 births as a primary care giver for her next study program) This means that she was able to add around 20 extra births to her total!! She has completed her goal and can now relax – especially when we go to the beach!