catching babies

Last week was my turn to be in the labour ward. Every student is allocated one week to do the delivery. We are required to get at least 7 deliveries in any mode, vaginal delivery or caesarean.

Alhamdulillah, I managed to observe a lot of deliveries. In one week, I managed to observe 5 caesareans, 3 vacuum-assisted vaginal delivery and assisted in 5 natural vaginal deliveries. I'm still not an expert in labour but I guess that I might be able to help if someone is going to deliver a baby somewhere in the future .

Pregnancy is a risky condition. In one week, there were 2 fetal deaths in-utero, 1 neonatal death, few prolonged second stage of labour and I saw one patient with pre-eclampsia.

Second stage of labour refers to the period from the full dilatation of cervix to the delivery of the baby. This stage should not be too long as it can lead to fetal distress.

There were times when I'm happy to see the babies and there were times when it was sad to hear the news of stillbirth. Overall, you have to be prepared for any potential complication from labour.

Last week was exciting yet I was pretty exhausted at the end of the week. It was a memorable experience and I wish that I could deliver more babies.

twenty five

25 years may seems a short time to someone who is 100 years-old but it is a long time for someone younger. It has been an interesting and challenging journey throughout this time. I guess I have caused enough trouble and happiness to my mom and dad in the past twenty five years. I hope that I am able to look after them in the future and be a good role model to my younger siblings.

My wish is outlined in this birthday tag. I hope these wishes would come true someday in the future.

I used to write a long entry every time my birthday comes. This year would be a short entry since I'm lacking words to write today and I have wrote a lot in the past few years .

Related entries:
23/8/2004 - Another milestone...
23/8/2005 - 22
23/8/2006 - 23 0n 23

cute babies

Sorry for the lack of updates in this blog. My busy schedule prevented me from blogging as often that I would like to be.

For the past few weeks, I have been to the antenatal and gynaecology clinics and visited the special nursery unit which is for babies that have problems and need to be monitored.

I have yet to deliver any baby since my turn will come in the next two weeks. At least, I am in the process of learning everything that is related to labour.

It was an interesting experience to see babies in the nursery unit. Most of them are pre term babies that were born earlier than their expected date. Few of them are jaundice, that is the skin become yellow, and need to be put under phototherapy for a while until the colour of their skin become normal.

I'm not sure why but most if not all babies look cute. It must be something that baby possess to ensure that they will be looked after by adults . It was fun to see their primitive reflex and to see its relevance for the babies. For example, if you scratch their mouth laterally, on either side of the mouth, the baby will turn their head to the side being scratched. This reflex is important for breastfeeding.

I hope this will be enough for now.

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Women's Health - Week 1 part II

To read part I, please check the previous post.

A lot of things happened during the first week of my rotation.

After 29 hours of lectures, the last period in the timetable was the definitions exam. This exam asked us on various definitions and few concepts that we have learned in one week. There were 50 questions that need to be answered in 30 minutes and all of them are written questions. It was the fastest exam time in my entire medical course.

It was either you know the answer or not. You don't have enough time to think. If you were fortunate, you might have few minutes to think of the answer. I think I have written lots of wrong answers.

Anyway, I have to work harder to gain better mark in the next exam. I could not afford to lose a single mark this semester. I don't want to fail my exam again. Thus, my attitude of perfectionist

.

On the other hand, a lot of unexpected things happened to me personally this week. I don't know how things unfold this way but it already happened. It is mind-boggling if I am to look for reasons that caused things to unfold this way.

Back to my first week of Women's Health, in conclusion, this week is busy, tiring and will take few weeks of self revision to digest all the contents of the lectures. I will be busy catching babies after this so I might only update this blog on weekends .

Women's Health - Week 1

Finally, the first week of my rotation in Obstetric and Gynaecology is over.

It has been an extremely busy week with most of the lectures for this rotation was given in this week. I think we had about 29 hours of lectures in just over 5 days. At the end of day 5, I am already overwhelmed with the sheer amount of lectures and will need few weeks to digest the entire content of the whole lectures in the first week.

Every day we started at 8 am and it was freezing in the morning. The first two days was held at Mercy Hospital which was about 10km from my home and the last three days was at Royal Women's Hospital. The Women's Hospital is not that far and it is next to the university. It will took me around 10-15 minutes if I am cycling to the hospital .

The first day was spend on learning about labour and how baby navigate around the tight pelvis to come out to the world.

Few interesting quotes about the labour taken from the lecture...

“Pain in labour is the by-product of the body’s creative activity…

Sheila Kitzinger: The New Pregnancy and Childbirth

“recognition has come slowly that labour, especially first labour, may be the most disturbing emotional event in the lifetime of one-half of humankind…

Driscoll, Meagher, Boylan: Active Management of Labour

The quotes somehow describe how painful the birth delivery was. We were shown a video showing the whole process of labour. The video shows how baby navigate around the tight pelvis and turn around the head and eventually come out from the uterus.

It was an amazing journey to see how the baby head was squashed, rotated and flexed from the dark uterus to the bright world outside. Despite the video only showed the edited version of the natural vaginal delivery since the labour process was quite long, the painful expression of the mother throughout the whole ordeal was clearly shown. The pain may come from the uterine contraction and dilation of the vagina.

The most surprising fact for me was to see how big the placenta compared to the baby. It seems that both placenta and the baby are of the same size.

I think the video managed to convince most of female medical students to choose Caesarean section over natural vaginal delivery. Caesarean is quicker and perhaps less painful than natural process but it also has few disadvantages.

The long arduous process of delivering a baby was something that needs to be praised. I was immediately reminded of how tough it was for my mother to deliver me and all of my siblings without going to Caesarean delivery, and there are 8 of us. That's why we need to respect our mother and father but sometimes we always forget that fact, especially when we are in the rebellious period as a teenager.

I will stop now and continue later....