Haiti – a tiny baby saved (photos)

The trip to Haiti was full of adventure and new experiences as well as lovely people to work with who became dear friends. The clinics were busy but productive.

A highlight for many of us was meeting up with a 24 year lady, Sonia and her tiny baby daughter Sae-na (pronounced Sienna) who appeared to be dying of starvation. She was tiny, having been born prematurely at 7 months and had survived being born in a dirty tent with the woman's sister cutting the cord. No Special Care Baby Unit here. The lady's 3 previous babies had died each a few weeks after birth and someone had told her that if she breast fed this baby it would also die as her milk must be cursed. Hence she had been feeding this tiny doll-like baby with water mixed with sugar and grated plantain for these past 3 weeks! No wonder she looked so quiet and devoid of energy. Amazing she was still alive.

What was particularly upsetting for us was that mum refused to even try starting to breastfeed as she was scared, not seeming to realize that if she did not the baby would die anyway. No other mother would feed the baby either. In the end we bought formula for the baby and endeavored to teach mum how to sterilize bottles and make up milk - not easy nor practical in a tent city. She had neither coal to boil water or money to buy formula. Sae-na could barely suck and needed to be drop fed via a syringe.

We returned to her village the following week and were relieved to find her alive and well, now able to drink formula from a bottle rather than a syringe. How they would cope once this formula had been used up had been a distressing thought – she would certainly have died, so we had to think of a potential solution.

The only hope was either to take the baby and put it in a good foster home as social services would have done in the West or better still have someone care for both baby and mother for 5 months until she could eat solids at least.

We were thrilled that the local Pastor, who we had worked with these past days –Pastor Jollicoer and his wife agreed to care for them both in their home next to the church and the school we had visited. They have a son and adopted daughter already and were a really nice family. The team all contributed to costs for formula and upkeep for the next 5 months and it was with great joy that we collected them in the Jeep and brought them to their new home.

So this was my highlight of this trip to Haiti - baby Sae-na now has the opportunity to live and has hope for the future and so does her mother Sonia who has probably never been loved or cared for.. A live saved - even just this one made the trip worthwhile.

I hope we can follow her progress on this site and Pastors Reginald and Jollicoeur can update us so that we can continue sponsoring her and the family.