I will start off this blog’s entry by writing about the birthing experience I shared with Kristinn the other day. First of all…..IT WAS AMAZING!! Coming from someone who would love to develop and practice the skills of a midwife I was in my glory as the quiet and calm Filipino woman pushed through a 7 hour labour without any pain killers.
Throughout the hours you could observe how the woman’s labour was progressing: her physical stance and facial expressions slowly changed to ones of more discomfort and her belly slowly descended. Even though she became more and more uncomfortable she did not make a single peep. Kristinn and I participated in examining the expectant mother and were lucky enough to scrub in for the delivery! As we waited with our sterile gloves pointing straight upwards, terrified of breaking our sterile field, we watched how amazing Susan was with the woman: supporting her, rubbing her back, and comforting her. The fathers do not come into the delivery room with the woman. According to the midwives Filipino women are much stronger when the men are not present. As odd as this may sound this statement was proven to be true after the arrival of the baby (I will get into that in a bit).
Once the woman was 10cm dilated she was still encouraged to be walking about and squatting throughout the contractions- please remember that there were NO pain medications given and this woman was not even making a peep!!! Now I was unfortunate and was not able to have a clinical rotation in labour and delivery however I highly doubt that the woman back home in Canada would be quietly squatting and walking about at 10cm dilation, let alone with no medication!!!! I know I would have would not be able to anyways.
At one point there was talk that the woman may have to undergo a caesarean section since there was meconium in the amniotic fluid and the fetal heart rate was slowly decelerating. However after speaking with the family we discovered that they were not able to afford a c-section and strongly wanted to have the birth at the clinic. Therefore the doctor delivered the baby instead of the midwife, just in case there were more complications. If the situation would have gotten much worse I’m sure they would have been insistent on the c-sec and the family would have had to repay the hospital over time or they would be able to have it completed on one of the charity wards. I am not certain of this however after learning about the Filipino health care system this is my hypothesis of what would have happened.
Alright, now into the part that you all really want to hear about!! The time finally arrived and the baby was nearly here. The doctor told me to be ready since once she completed the episiotomy the baby would pop right out…..and it did!! POP there was the head!! Oh Lord I’m sure my eyes were as huge as watermelons as I watched little Marvin arrive. BUT WAIT….the cord was around the neck! The doc slipped in there snipped the cord and then baby needed to come out asap. I had the head in my hands and they told me to pull. Honestly I thought I was going to pull the poor child’s head off but they kept saying “pull pull pull,” so I pulled!! I had to pull downwards and then upwards to guide the shoulders out and then POOF there was Marvin! I was holding onto that child for dear life, worried that I might drop the slippery cute little infant. I vigorously rubbed his back since he was not crying until he was swooped away by a midwife. There I was in awe by the whole event. The doctor then took the time to teach me every step while she stitched up the mother.
All of the garbage such as bandages, gloves, and even the placenta is put in a plastic bag and the family takes it home to bury it….different. The tiered mother seemed alert and fine until the husband came in and then she appeared as if she was a ragdoll (exactly what the midwife had said- Filipino women are much stronger when their husbands are not around). There was no stretcher so the husband carried her to a bed.
The mother did not breastfeed the baby right away or even hold him. This I found typically odd since all of the mothers we have seen in the communities have been very attached to their young. I wonder if breastfeeding right after birth is uncommon here or it was just the case in this particular situation. Hopefully a few other students will be able to take part in a child birth and we can compare notes!! Stay tuned!

Chelsea and the nursing students in the Philippines