Pay a Haitian midwife's salary for one year at MN

What follows is a recurring theme when working in an impoverished, rural Haitian community, where maternal health professionals are everyday heroes.

Four days before Madeleine took her baby boy home from the hospital, she didn’t know if either of them would be alive by morning. Madeleine was eight months pregnant when she came to Maison de Naissance feeling very sick. Her head hurt, her hands and feet were swollen, she was seeing spots, and she had pain by her rib cage. She had been previously warned by her midwife and her community health worker to watch out for these symptoms of preeclampsia, a severe complication which can cause seizures, bleeding from a torn placenta, and even death of the mother and baby.

Though this was her first baby and she had been seen at MN only once, Madeleine knew her due date was a month off, and she was sure it wasn't time for her baby to come. As she rode the back of her neighbor’s motorbike along the bumpy dirt roads to MN, she became extremely worried. She wasn’t feeling the baby move as much today, and her head was hurting worse. By the time she arrived at MN, her blood pressure was very high and she was bleeding. The midwife who was seeing her recognized the symptoms, and provided medication to keep Madeleine from having a seizure, while an IV was started.

Grabbing a pack of supplies for a cesarean section, she accompanied Madeleine in the MN ambulance for drive into Les Cayes to the General Hospital, where a cesarean section could be performed. Thanks to the education that Madeleine received at her prenatal appointment with an MN midwife, she recognized the warning signs of preeclampsia. The quick work of her midwife ensured that she made it to the hospital in time to save the mother and her baby.  Just another day of midwifery in rural Haiti, providing life saving maternal health care services!

Links:

• Global Birthing Home Foundation