Labor’s Inequities
Spring and babies. They belong in the same breath. As part of my new job as a grant writer for Alexian Brothers Health System, I toured the system’s new women and children hospital, a state of the art facility whose partpartum unit has 32 rooms- all private with refrigerators and spacious couches for sleepy dads and partners. Above this floor are the labor and delivery suites, equipped with the latest technology to bring babies into this world safely.
Just last week I was struck by a young photographers’ portfolio in the New York Times that captured her experience as an intern working in the maternity room of a hospital in the Dominican Republic, where mothers labored for hours on bare mattresses. About a quarter million women die in childbirth every year; the majority of these deaths are preventable. Her poignant words and photos took me back to my own birth experiences.
With my first two pregnancies, I was diagnosed with preeclampsia, a life-threatening condition of late pregnancy easily treated with bedrest. Thanks to superb care at a Boston hospital, my oldest daughter, Abby, entered this world perfectly healthy, if a bit small at 6 pounds. ( I still remember these lovely nurses positioning a TV blaring cartoons next to my stomach, trying to awaken the sleeping Abby for a non-stress test.) Abby and i had an extra day’s rest because traffic snarled from the Boston Marathon prevented our doctor from discharging us. Her brother Aaron arrived thee years later, at a freestanding birthing center.
Once again, my pregnancy showed signs of pre-eclampsia, confining me to long periods on the couch broken only by trips to the bathroom. Luckily my mother in law rescued us, taking care of Abby while I rested.
Far too many of the world’s women are not as lucky as I was. Their high risk pregnancies remain untreated– heart-breaking when a little intervention could save their lives. As we mark Women’s History Month, I hope and pray we can write a new history that will not sentence women to death simply because they live in the wrong part of the world.
Here’s link to those photos..
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/lifes-unequal-beginnings.html?hp