Prenatals

Every weekday morning we do prenatals here at the clinic. As a staff, we are in teams, and each team has their morning to lead devotions and singing, do a health teaching, and then see each mother one by one and give individual checkups. I am on the team that has Friday morning prenatals.
The mothers come to the clinic early on in their pregnancy to "sign up" for prenatal classes and checkups. On any given day, we expect between 50 and 80 mothers. After we are done with each patient, we schedule them for their next checkup. How soon they come back depends on how far along they are in their pregnancy. The individual checkups include palpating for the fetus' position, listening for heart tones, giving nutrional advice, giving tetanus injections, prescribing supplements, checking for abnormalities, and reviewing lab results.
I really enjoy doing prenatals - it gives you a chance to sit and talk to the women about their lives, their families and homes. They are mostly very excited to be having the checkup, and love to ask questions and find out about how their baby is doing.

In these pictures, I am checking Jaqueline (my godson's aunt) and her baby. She is 21 and this is her 3rd pregnancy - wow! I scheduled her next checkup for in two weeks time - that way I'll still be here and can see her again.