Haiti

I traveled to Haiti for week in July to shadow and work on breastfeeding/HIV issues at a clinic in Port au Prince. My lack of all French and Creole, the short length of my trip and my ill-defined "project" all got in the way of me really getting involved with patients in the clinic. But I did observe in the pediatric clinic one day (thanks to the generosity and interpretation of one of the pediatricians) and I hung around the nutrition unit long enough to get a good idea of how breastfeeding support works at this clinic and what the sentiments are around HIV and breastfeeding.

Doing this work, I realized that healthy, normal breastfeeding is universal ( a good latch is a good latch in Port au Prince or Hanover, NH), while the cultural issues around breastfeeding vary a great deal.

I saw much more public breastfeeding than I'd ever seen in the states, including a plump, joyful mama sitting in a hot clinic tent nursing her twins. At one point I was also surrounded by about 80 women (all with little babes sitting on their laps) singing a popular Creole song about how great breastfeeding is. This was during a breastfeeding education session in the camp nearby that houses folks who lost their homes in the earthquake. The camp is managed by members of the camp community and by the clinic that I worked with. It was a really beautiful moment - even if it may not have made a huge difference in breastfeeding success.

The benefits of breastfeeding for infant immunity and weight gain were remarkably obvious in the babies I saw. None of the breastfed infants were anything other than supple, content, drooling munchkins. Some of the older kids and the formula-fed babies who were more vulnerable to food insecurity and poor sanitation did not look nearly so good. In such challenging health conditions, babies really need boobs.

I also saw alot of kids silently staring off into space on their mother's laps. When I did see a curious, squirmy baby I was startled. Many of the babies in this particular population are undernourished and under-stimulated, but I think the clinic is doing good work to encourage healthier habits, at least with regards to nutrition.

I spent the rest of the summer after I got back working very part time to create breastfeeding education and policy materials for the clinic. I was disappointed that I didn't have more concrete work to do, but happy to contribute in my own small way, to learn oodles about HIV and breastfeeding (an very hot field of research and policy development with huge implications for infant survival in the developing world), and to have more time with the boys.