House call – to Kenya
Published 4:00 pm Monday, January 3, 2011
- On a trip to Kenya last summer Sherry Dress of Canyon City (center in light blue dress) had the opportunity to train 13 traditional birth attendants in midwifery. She plans to make a return trip to the country next summer and is starting a nonprofit to help expactant mothers around the world.
CANYON CITY A visit to the poorest of the poor in Kenya last summer where she delivered 13 babies was so significant for Sherry Dress of Canyon City, shes planning a return trip, and shes starting a nonprofit to help mothers around the world.
Dress is devoted to caring for expectant mothers and babies. Shes a licensed, certified midwife through her business called Theres No Place Like Home, and she owns Naturally Yours health food store in John Day.
Last year, she delivered 48 babies, including three sets of twins. In her 35-year career, she has delivered over 2,000 home births.
Dress is accustomed to making house calls, but the summer of 2010 took her on a home visit across the globe.
It started with a question from Jannekah Guya, who saw Dress for a prenatal care checkup in February. Guya, who lives in Eldoret, Kenya, is a missionary doula, helping women in their childbearing years. She was on a short visit to her native Washington state when Dress came to give her a checkup.
Guya knew it was a stretch, but she asked Dress if she would make the overseas trip to deliver her baby in June.
Well, maybe, Dress said. The Lord would have to work it out.
Dress friend Mary McRae, who is also a friend of Guyas, arranged the trip which was sponsored by the Eastside Christian Fellowship in Kirkland, Wash.
The journey turned into a larger scale mission of service.
After delivering a baby in Walla Walla, Wash., on the evening of May 29, Dress flew out of Seattle the next day with McRae.
They took along 300 pounds of medical supplies and baby clothing also soccer uniforms to give to Guyas husband, the Rev. Martin Guya, who coaches youth soccer as part of his ministry.
In the mix were 10 midwifery supply bags, each with equipment such as a feta scope, stethoscope, box of gloves, golden seal, bulb syringe and clamps and scissors.
The clamps and scissors are of particular importance because birth attendants in the area Dress visited traditionally cut newborns cords by biting them, which can spread disease.
She arrived in Nairobi on a Thursday, driving five hours to Eldoret where she stayed with the Guya family.
Not a moment was wasted on the trip.
When Dress delivered the first of the 10 bags on her second evening in Kenya, she also ended up delivering a baby.
She went to the birth hut of a woman named Gogo, a traditional birth attendant.
A cow, chickens and other animals stood outside the hut.
Inside, Dress witnessed primitive conditions – no windows, no lighting, no beds. There were three wooden pallets in one room and two in another, each with a horribly stained, thin cotton pad.
A young woman, in labor for two days, lay on the dirt floor.
Dress came to the rescue, using techniques to aid delivery of the baby, a boy.
I saved his life, she said.
The baby was born not breathing and with a heart rate of 40 – the normal newborn heart rate is 120-160.
She used her skirt to wipe off the baby, her slip to wipe out his mouth, as she worked to resuscitate the infant.
There was nothing else available, she said, not even water – the dirty water in a nearby river was infested with crocodiles.
A translator told Dress that Gogo wondered why she was making such a fuss over the baby Gogo would have wrapped the baby in a blanket and handed it to the mother, without the further efforts.
The mother named the baby after Dress husband, Michael, with the Swahili name of Kitchumba, meaning white person. Its tradition in the native culture to choose a babys last name by whatever is seen or is going on at the time of birth, Dress said.
The next day, Dress drove two hours over extremely bumpy roads to a church to train women in midwifery. Expecting five women, Dress was surprised when 13 showed up, many traveling all night by bus to get there.
The women were very grateful for the training they received, said Dress. Its really scary how little they know. Hospitals are very few and far between.
On Sunday, Dress presented a sermon based on 1 Thessalonians 5:14, … See that no one renders evil for evil… . Many in the congregation were boys on Guyas soccer team.
The boys had tears rolling down their faces, Dress said.
After church Dress learned that two months before her arrival 1,200 people in the area had been killed in ethnic fighting. Some of the boys had been involved with the conflict.
The midwifes mission continued for two weeks.
At a nearby hospital, she donated 100 gift packs of baby clothes and bulb syringes to young mothers and staff.
She taught the doctors and nurses midwifery birthing techniques to prevent tearing so new mothers wouldnt go home with stitches – a major source of infection. She also taught basic nutrition to hospital personnel.
Dress spent two days in a hospital wing for abandoned babies.
In one month, 16 babies were abandoned and only eight survived. The hospital staff put little, weaker newborns in a corner, left to die, she said. Orphanages there are full and will not take newborns, she added.
The hospital has no food to give to patients and no milk for babies, she noted. Friends or family are expected to bring meals, and patients arent allowed to leave until they pay – a price many cant afford.
Some of the new mothers sneak out of the hospital, leaving their babies behind. One three-week-old baby was brought in after being found on a garbage heap.
Dress said she tried to no avail to bring home several abandoned babies.
It is beyond my scope of understanding as to why they wouldnt let me take those babies – it was incomprehensible, she said.
A happier time on the trip came June 10, when Jannekahs baby boy Ezriel was successfully delivered after a two-hour labor.
It was perfect, Dress said.
She returned home June 17, and is already making plans to visit again next summer.
It was a life-changing experience to see the poorest of the poor, she said. You have no idea that that is whats going on in the world. It is beyond comprehension, the conditions that people live in.
There is no comparison because the poor in the U.S. have government housing and food stamps.
She noted that in the places she visited there is no help from the government.
The majority of people are in survival mode every day looking for something to eat – even the kids have to fend for themselves, she said. The parents are gone – there is no parental supervision.
Each year in Kenya 6,150 women die from causes related to childbirth and pregnancy, she said.
Dress is starting a nonprofit, Mothering the Mothers of the World, with a mission to reduce the maternal and newborn mortality rate among people in Kenya, Ruwanda, Mexico and the Philippines.
She hopes to travel to Kenya and Ruwanda in July, again with supplies.
They need better hygiene, equipment and education, she said.
To learn more about the nonprofit or to make donations of money or baby clothing or medical supplies, call Dress at 541-575-0962.
Visit www.MyEagleNews.com for a link to a video of Dress trip.