In August Joyful Motherhood nurses enrolled 20 babies (including 9 orphans, 7 babies whose mothers are critically ill and hospitalized, 1 baby with spinal bifida, and 3 babies whose mothers are not producing milk) into our programs. Two women were enrolled, both with severe postpartum anemia. Nurses conducted 190 visits to women and babies this month.
Baby Admission Story. Edina was 21 when she delivered Moses on June 16th. He was born on a grass mat laid over the packed dirt floor in her village home. Rather than slide out after him with one final push, the placenta clung to her uterus and she started to bleed. The blood flowed over and between the weave of the matt and into the floor. Edina died beside her newborn.
Edina’s family pooled their resources and bought a tin of formula; they stretched it as far as possible. Moses ate the white then grayish water. When it finished, they bought another and another. Each time worrying about his thinning cheeks and about how they would afford one more tin. In desperation they brought Moses to a health center and he was referred to our program. Moses is emaciated, still hovering around his birth weight but now he will receive the support he needs from our nurses while living with his grandmother.
