“With patience, you will see the navel of the ant.” (A Haitian / Creole proverb.)

Haitian Superstitions Endanger the Lives of the Unborn…

Every day at our Birthing Center, all pregnant women are trained on precautions to take, and on things they should not consume during pregnancy. But Haitian mothers are stubborn and stick to “old wives’ tales,” and they believe things that have been handed down from generations, which causes them to endanger their life and the life of their babies.

This is the case for Mrs. Sophie Baptiste. She is 18 years old and came from a village in Fonds-Parisien, in a district called Boulaille, a few kilometers from Love A Child. She was a merchant in Croix des Bouquets, about an hour from us. But now, the gangs are controlling the perimeter of this area and her business went bankrupt.

This poor young pregnant woman, Mrs. Sophie, always came to all her appointments when she got pregnant. At midnight, she came to the Birthing Center to give birth. As soon as she arrived, she was already 3 cm, and the midwives took care of her. But Sophie’s mother had given her “ginger tea” to drink, (to make the baby come faster), which put her in a critical state. This made her push harder to have the baby because her cervix was ​​not yet open. She tried to push, unfortunately, she no longer had the strength to push. The case became very complicated; the midwives told her parents that she was having trouble giving birth and that she should be transferred to a Hospital. Her parents were crying… they said that they had no money and the roads were blocked by gangs. After several hours, the midwives were patient with her and gave her medicine to be able to give birth. Due to the difficulty of “pushing,” you can see in the photos the baby’s head presented with what they call “Boss Serosanguine,” or elongated head. According to midwives, the head will return to its normal shape in 2 or 3 weeks.

The mother and baby are doing well. Mrs. Sophie delivered a healthy baby boy, a miracle baby! As the Haitian / Creole proverb says, “With patience, you will see the navel of the ant.” If you live in Haiti and do not have patience, you will have a lot of problems. We are thankful for our wonderful midwives, who had patience through this difficult and life-threatening situation!

Sherry

On another note… we are about the only ones in Haiti who furnish mothers with a Birth Certificate for their baby!