My first birth room shift

I went in at 2pm to shadow Sarah, one of the student midwives, during swing shift. The supervising midwife, Stephanie, asked about my skills and I told her I was only here to observe since I didn't have any training. There are several interns here this summer with various backgrounds in training, some are midwifery students in the states trying to get their "numbers" (need to catch a certain amount of babies, etc before graduation), others are missionaries in other parts of the world trying to get more maternity experience. I wanted Stephanie to know I was not like that--my only experience was teaching childbirth classes!

Well, there were three moms laboring, and then very quickly 2 of the mothers started to push at about the same time. I was watching a mom give birth to her baby who had very thick meconium when the BOW broke. Stephanie told me that she would need me to hand her certain tools as the baby is born and she would also need me to turn on the suctioning machine if I asked her too. As soon as the baby's head was born, I turned on the suctioning machine and then there was just this very crazy flurry in room. Stephanie asked me to run to go get another student midwife who was upstairs in class for help. The other mom began to push, so one of the midwives in our room had to go assist that mom. That left me and Stephanie and another midwife assisting with this obvious emergency. So, Stephanie told me I would need to do the charting. (I now see that during the birth, there is a supervising midwife, an assisting midwife, and another midwife charting). So, I VERY QUICKLY learned to chart that evening, writing down everything that happened during the birth and everything that Stephanie told me to write.

The baby was having a hard time breathing, so oxygen was given. Apgars were 6 (not very high). The poor little baby boy had a deformity on his left leg. From about the knee down his leg was very floppy, almost as if there was no bone in that area. I could see the sadness in the mother and fathers eyes. I cannot imagine what that was like for them to face. The baby would do, okay, as long as oxygen was being administered, but if it was taken away he would not breath well. Stephanie explained to the husband that he would need to take his baby to the hospital with one of the midwives because the baby was not breathing well. Bethany, one of the other midwives who came from class upstairs volunteered to go on the transport. After the mom was cleaned up everyone left the room for a minute and it was just the two of us in the room. I offered her some water to drink and asked her how she was doing. Then, I asked if I could pray for her baby. She said, "please". So I prayed her baby would be strong and start to breath well. Afterwards I saw the mom fighting back her tears really hard.

I still don't know how the baby is doing. The baby was admitted to the hospital for difficulty breathing and he also had a lot of crackling in his lungs from the meconium. I will let you know as soon as I find out.

Soon after I left the room, I saw another birth of a mom who was having a lot of back pain with her labor and hard time pushing. She did a wonderful job and pushed out a 9lb 4oz baby boy! There was some meconium, but the baby was not having trouble breathing. I charted this birth as well.

Behind the other curtain, I went to say congrats to the young mom who had just given birth to her first baby! I had watched her during labor a little. She hung on every word any midwife would tell her. I have noticed mostly in this culture the women are pretty independent and do not want "help" during labor, they want to be left alone. This woman really appreciated guidance with breathing and I could tell she was scared about the pain of labor. Her baby girl was so healthy and the mom was so happy! Here are pictures below of this mom and her baby. One of the daddy and midwife giving her baby a bath, and the one at the very top is of the mom holding her baby.

After everything calmed down again, Stephanie told me and laughed that I came "only to observe". She said God had other plans for me there that evening, and now I have a new skill....charting!