Courtney Massaro

Yesterday and today I participated in a training called “Helping Babies Breathe” (HBB). The training materials are produced by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and our training was put on by a number of American doctors who do HBB trainings all over the world. I was lucky enough to be able to also participate as a trainer in the training, which was a lot of fun. There were about 40 people at our training—mostly nurses, though there were also a couple of doctors (but sadly no midwives). I had 6 women (all nurses) within my small training group.

Most days (or I should say nights rather)—I forget I’m working in Haiti. We have normal, beautiful deliveries with happy, healthy moms and babies. I got to catch twins the other day (!!), and the first was breech—which was quite exciting/stressful for me, as breech babies typically are sectioned in the U.S. and so the breech delivery skill-set is a dying art. Sure we have the occasional loss of power, or we run out of gloves, but overall things at the maternity run in a manner pretty similar to how they would back in the U.S.

Haiti—or at least what I’ve seen of it—is a very religious country. Although religion in Haiti may make people think of Voodoo—which is certainly still practiced—I however, have seen it mainly in the Christian incarnation. A significant number of the buses and trucks, as well as the stores around Cayes have Christian Bible verses/words on them/names, and there are churches (of various denominations) all over the city. Women at the maternity often pray and sing through their labor/contractions, and many of the women—immediately after giving birth—say a prayer in thanks to Jesus. Two nights ago—at 3am—one of the laboring women started signing a song talking about “needing God”. Shortly after she started singing other people picked up the song and began to sing as well. For a good 5 minutes I’d say there were 15+ people singing this song (beautifully I might add), and then after the song faded they each started praying their own prayers. I seemed to be the only one who was astonished that everyone seemed to know the song and wanted to sing it, and that no one else thought it an inappropriate time (3am) to belt out a song and then start to pray loudly. I mention this story only because it was—for me—an incredibly unique experience, which gave me a better appreciation for the norms and beliefs of some (most, possibly) of my patients.

Susan is a RN midwife and like her private clinic colleagues acts more as a family nurse practitioner. She assesses and diagnoses and prescribes medication or other treatments and now refers out for deliveries and more complicated cases.