Baby safe after hurricane birth
Not all the drama surrounding Hurricane Iris took place within twenty miles of the eye. As Ann-Marie discovered there were a number of anxious moments far from the wind and water.
Ann-Marie Williams, Reporting
While Hurricane Iris was taking at least twenty lives in Southern Belize, eighty miles away in Belize City in the small Community Health Centre of Queen’s Square, a seven pound baby girl was being born. The proud mother, seventeen-year-old Keisha Bowen had her first baby at 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
Keisha Bowen, Mother of 7lb. Baby
“I felt good because I was in a lot of pain and nobody was there to help me.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Was the delivery rough? How would you describe it?”
Keisha Bowen
“Very painful.”
What was also very painful was the ordeal she and her mother had to go through prior to delivery, as they huddled in a hurricane shelter at Odyssey Disco on Freetown Road.
Burnett Bowen, Keisha’s Mother
“The police told us to go by Technical College, but when we went there no nurse was there. So they told us to go over by the clinic. So we went by the clinic with the men in the vehicle and when we got there, the clinic was closed, the lady had already went home. So we went to the station and the police told us to go home because they were saying that no babies can be delivered at the hospital, so what can they do there. They chased us from the station because they say they can’t deliver a baby, so why would the other policemen send us there. I went and told a man and that man went back to the police and I don’t know what he told them, but that’s how they told us to go up by Price Barracks.””
But no doctor was at Price Barracks, neither a helicopter to fly Keisha to Orange Walk, the closest place where medical assistance was available.
Burnett Bowen
“So we were still standing in Price Barracks and that’s finally when this lady, who was a nurse, said to let her carry her down and we’ll see if she could help attend to Keisha. That’s how we brought her down back and called an ambulance to take her to Orange Walk, but the lady said that she would deliver right here. That’s how she ended up having the baby at that side.”
And that’s where practical midwife Marina Welcome comes in. She was called out of her bed to assist.
Marina Welcome, Practical Midwife
“we observed here and about 3:30 in the morning, between me and Miss Jenkins she delivered a healthy seven pound baby girl.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“The ninth was her expected date of delivery?”
Marina Welcome
“No, they had given her up to the twenty-first to have the baby. But I guess maybe after the fright of the hurricane she went into labour.”
Since most community clinics are not equipped to do deliveries, Welcome had to quickly set up a makeshift delivery area.
Marina Welcome
“We don’t even have a proper table to put the instruments on. What I did that night was use two chairs and a dirt pan and put it at the edge of that table for the afterbirth and mess to go into. It’s very difficult, I think maybe next time they can think to equip, not only this clinic, but the majority of clinics and use them for hurricanes and let them try to do the best they can do.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“What’s the name of the baby?”
Keisha Bowen
“I don’t know yet.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“I thought you would have given her Iris?”
Keisha Bowen
“I don’t want Iris, that’s an old name.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Maybe for the circumstances you think, Iris would have been appropriate?”
Keisha Bowen
“Yes, but for her middle name, not the first name because Iris is old. I’m not sure yet about the first name.”
Ann-Marie Williams for News 5.
Marina Welcome commented that in the future it might make sense to keep at least one mobile medical team on call for emergencies such as the one that occurred in Belize City.
