Rural Health Post

Yesterday I went to a rural health post in Moron County which is about an hour and a half drive from Jeremie. I piled into the back of an SUV with 8 nurses from HHF (all men). Luckily one of them spoke English and was able to introduce me to everyone. Another SUV full of American doctors, nurses and dentists met us at the health post. Haitian nurses handled prenatal and postnatal care visits while the Americans saw all the other patients. The dental chairs were set up outside in the gravel. I weighed and took the blood pressure of all of women who came for prenatal care. There must have been over 100 of them which really surprised me since we were in such a rural area. They all crowded around the 2 chairs that were set up next to the scale and shoved each other out of the way to be the next one to get her blood pressure taken. Every time I pumped up that cuff I felt 100 pairs of eyes on me! Most of them had extremely low blood pressure (like 90/60). I wonder if that is related to malnutrition. I really needed a pediatric cuff to get accurate BPs on many of them because their arms were so thin. A few of the younger women were far enough along in their pregnancy to be showing, but weighed less than 90 pounds. I have no idea how they had enough body fat to ovulate in the first place!

            Today I officially began my research. The daughter of Bette (my summer host) has offered to be my translator for the summer which is great! Michelle, who is 17, grew up speaking Creole and English and also was in need of a summer job, so she is perfect! Judy (my professor from UCONN), Michelle and I interviewed 3 women this morning after they had a post-natal care visit. For my research I will be talking with women who come in for prenatal care, but since this was just for practice it was fun to talk to women with their adorable newborns! I am starting to get an idea of the factors that play into women coming in for prenatal at the Center of Hope. One woman today told us she could not come in for prenatal care to early because then everyone would know she was pregnant (the women all have to line up and wait together) and she was concerned about others sending evil spirits to harm the baby. I am sure I will get a bunch more interesting responses to my questions; I can't wait to do more. On the way home from work today a truck was broken down in the middle of street, blocking traffic in both directions. We had to leave the car and walk the rest of the way, a true Haiti experience!