Home Visits

Yesterday Anie, Suzie and I went out to do a couple of home visits to my patients. We had a three day visit, a four week visit, and an eight week visit.

Little Zeek is such a cutie!

And his mama really loves him!

My four week postpartum patient lived the closest, so we went there first. She lives just down the street from the clinic and I couldn't figure out for the life of me why she never came for any of her postpartum visits when she lived so close! Well, it turns out that she watches two additional kids (she has a three year old, a one year old, and her baby) all day while their parents are at work because there is no one else to watch them. I wish I'd known that, because I would have made more of an effort to find her house earlier. But both Clair and her little boy, Zeek are doing great! They look happy and healthy. The only concern I had was her stress levels with all those kids around, and the fact that she is doing mix feeding. So often here you hear the women say that they don't have enough milk because the baby cries all the time or after feedings, or because someone in her family tells her that she doesn't have enough. They'll give their baby a bottle which means he's not sucking as much which means that her body slows down production which results in not having enough milk! They are creating the problem they think they have. It's a bit frustrating sometimes. Anyway. I encouraged her to only do pure breastfeeding and drink some jackfruit leaf tea if she really feels she doesn't have enough milk. 

Yeuja is such a wonderful mama!

Isn't Rowen Jake a handsome little guy?

 

Rowen Jake with his Lolo Jacob!

Our next stop was to see my three day postpartum patient. Yeuja had a REALLY great birth, though she'll tell you she thought she was going to die in labor. During transition she was pretty frantic, but focused well with constant instruction. And when she started to push, she did beautifully, giving
small pushes which allowed her tissue to stretch. It was so beautiful, I just love births like that! Anyway, both her and her son, Rowen Jake are doing great. She is a bit tired, but says she feels good. She is doing pure breastfeeding and enjoying her sweet boy so much. :) The unique thing about this family is that Yeuja's grandfather married a younger woman not too long ago. They had a son, Jacob, who is now 9 months old. So, Jacob is Rowen Jake's great uncle! HA! Here in the Philippines they don't have a word for great uncle, so they just call him lolo, which means grandfather. Does it make anyone else think of the song, "He's his own grandpa?"

They are such a cute little family. :)

Little Alvin James...He's getting so big!

Finally we made our way down to Laya. I'm sure you remember my entry about my backwards baby. This is the one we were going to visit. Anie and I had planned MANY times for weeks to go visit them, but each time we had it planned, one of us would have a birth or something. Jane hadn't come for any of her postpartum checks and I felt bad that we hadn't made it down there yet. When we got there she told us about her mastitis (breast infection). She'd gone for a doctor check a week and a half ago because it got so bad. She had a wound about the size of a half dollar that was healing. The doctor had given her antibiotics which she'd just finished. We told her to go for a followup check the next day. The doctor told her not to breast feed on the infected breast, but she had been pumping from it. We told her its better to feed from both sides, and to ask the doctor when she can feed from that side again. I felt really bad that I hadn't made more of an effort to visit her earlier. If I had, than maybe the infection wouldn't have gotten so bad. But other than the infection, her and her sweet little Alvin James (named after my grandpa Al) are doing well. Alvin looks really good and his mama seems happy. I was glad I was finally able to get down there to visit them. :)
All in all, it was a good morning of visits. I always struggle with doing home visits, thinking, "I'd rather just stay home, it's too hot." But once I'm out and doing the visits I love it and wonder why I don't do it more often. :)