Today we went to the clinic to start the day off.  |
| Naomi and I by the clinic water tank |
Naomi met us there to receive the blankets that Nancy Littlefield had sent over. I was very excited to bring them. On Friday mornings they give immunizations to the babies that have recently been born. There were many mothers present with her newborn babies. We distributed a new blanket to each one of the mothers that was there with her new baby. We also stayed to talk to Naomi and Joyce,her assistant, about the challenges of working in Ethiopia. The two of them work 24/7. They will deliver about 50 babies/month plus handle all of the other issues.
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| Mother's with their new blankets for their babies |
I ask Naomi about the goat milk for the mothers with AIDS she said that they had four mothers on the program for a while but now they do not have any mothers on the program. I followed up a little bit more about the situation. It appears that the mammary glands do filter out the AIDS or the HIV virus so mother can nurse the baby and not give her baby AIDS. However other bodily fluids can transmit the aids to the babies. So they recommend that the mothers do not nurse their babies for more than six months.
There is a great stigma in the culture if the mother isn't nursing her baby. So there is pressure for the mothers with AIDS to continue nursing their babies later on. So if we have the goat milk then the mothers don't feel quite so much pressure to nurse the babies after the six month time frame.
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