Making a house call

Today after our ESL class we had our normal mobile medical clinic. Did a lot of teaching, checking of blood pressures, and some follow-up with a few pregnant moms that have been coming diligently for pre-natal vitamins and other general concerns. Today one of the young girls in our class asked me to come see her baby brother. She is the daughter of one of the moms I saw at the pregnancy clinic. At that time I had told this mom that she needed to go to the hospital immediately to have her baby. She was a few weeks post-due with a VERY high blood pressure, and VERY high blood sugar. So today I was able to follow-up with mom (she went to the hospital 2 days after our visit and ended with a c-section), and assess her baby. Her baby was born at 12.5 pounds, and was currently a rolly-polly 2 month old. We were also able to see the rest of her children. There are 11 children in the family. After providing the family with tooth brushes all around, medicine for a few, assessment of the baby and just spending some time with the family we were almost ready to go. However, we found out that the mom's oldest daughter was also pregnant. I checked her blood sugar and it was clear she had gestational diabetes. So commenced a LOT of teaching, and vitamins, and we will be following up with her weekly to continually assess her. This is the kind of thing we were hoping to establish - trust, and the ability to follow patients in the community.

This is a picture of the mom when we were handing out flyers for the pregnancy clinic


Doing an assessment on the baby


Not even 2 months old!


Part of the family - the young woman in blue holding her brother is 2 months pregnant