Casa Compasiva is ready for their grand opening on February 5th. The furniture is in place, the birth rooms ready, and the supply closet is now stocked and organized. Yesterday we went into downtown Oaxaca to find a place to buy something to organize the instruments and supplies. We found plastic basket heaven. All manner of plastic articles, from a baby bath, to toilet plungers, to little cups and dishes, flower pots, about anything a house would need. We found everything we needed for about 2850.00 pesos.
We had taken the time the day before to pull everything out of the little room and sort it into categories and piles of same stuff. I had a good time bringing it all together. Must be the mother in me again. I like organization, but don’t often take the time to be THAT organized. I guess that is what I am lacking. Time.
The floors are all tile, and are easily swept and mopped. The kitchen now has a working gas stove and a fridge with a freezer.
The prenatal room is just the right size. The bed is small, but was actually donated for the birth center by a Dr. who used it for just this purpose.
One of the Christian Mexican woman is very gifted with a paint brush. She has decorated the walls and about the doors in numerous rooms. Here are just two of her creations. On the bigger spaces, she painted a string of flowers and leaves with scripture verses across.
Here are two pictures of the birth rooms. One is the main room, with the single beds. The room with the double bed is the overflow. The wonderful thing is that each of these rooms has a good sized bathroom. This seems like the ideal birth center set up.
I can see that the birth center it totally workable and I feel good about the knowledge that the Doulas have absorbed. Yes, they have a lot to learn, but it will come with time. Consuela, their retired OB nurse is very medical and gets off on automatic pilot with her way of doing things, but she is readily teachable. For instance, she is struggling a little bit with the idea that we include the family as a unit in all the prenatal. She did not think that the birth dad should be in the room with us while we were doing the vitals. She also did not think that we should be telling the patient what her BP was.
Midwifery is different, we explained. We include the family together and try to educate the mama about her body and how it works. We help her and give her reasons to eat well, to take care of herself.
Another issue that came up was, at the first prenatal they had, Consuela counseled the mama not to eat salt so her feet would not swell. Later, the next morning, we shared with her the “new research” that says that mamas need salt in their diet to taste, to avoid swelling and toxemia. She received it well, and was very interested in knowing the midwife way of doing things.
She was completely happy to show me how to wrap a sterile instrument pack, with the blue cloth. Somehow in my midwifery training I missed that. Now I know. She showed me about 10 times and talked for about 10 minutes and sterility and the proper care of instruments. I think I could learn a lot from her!
She will be an excellent teacher of the young aspiring midwives that come to Casa Compasive from the pueblos. I just wish she spoke English.
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