Antenatal/ Child Health Clinic

I went on one of the outreach antenatal clinics on Monday which was an interesting experience. After being told to meet at 9am we eventually left the hospital with a driver, 2 midwives, 4 first year nursing students and me just before 10am. We had to stop by Nyamiaga, the government hospital in Ngara to pick up supplies, another midwife and a doctor and somewhere along the way we acquired a fourth midwife. We were traveling in a land rover with 3 people in the front and the rest of us on the 2 bench seats which face sideways into the vehicle. After about half an hour, mainly on dirt track we arrived at the village where we were doing the clinic and set up the child health clinic under one tree and the antenatal clinic under another. I spent the morning graphing the weights of the children on their health cards and then at about 3:30pm we started doing vaccinations. There were at least 400 children under 5 years old at the clinic, which was a lot of cards on which to plot weights.

They use spring balance scales, which they just hang from a convenient tree branch. The scales have a large hook on the bottom, the children are put into a cloth harness which looks a bit like a pair of rompers with long strap and then hung from the hook on the scales by the straps. The whole contraption reminded me of a cross between a baby bouncer and a set of butcher’s scales. Some babies were quite happy in it and some screamed as soon as mum let them go.