March 30th, 2009 Jo
I miss our old staff. There are so many wonderful people who have worked in the foundation and then moved on - too many to list, really, and with my memory, I’m sure to forget someone absolutely crucial.
But they all live on in my dreams and they all pop up from places as far away as new Zealand and Milwaukee and Vishakapatnam and Jaipur and Chennai - they send messages on facebook and gmail and they call out of the blue and send boxes of things for Rainbow Resale and donations for the calendar and in some ways it feels like they haven’t really left at all. But I still miss them.
One of my favorite parts of staying in touch with them all is the baby pictures. They have the most beautiful babies. This is Gunjan’s baby boy, her sunshine, she says, though when she called a few days ago from the US where she is living, she said I could have him if I wanted because her husband was away, her mother-in-law had just left and little Mr Sunshine wasn’t sleeping a whole lot.
Gunjan was my Executive Assistant many years ago. She joined just as we were embarking on our first Advisory Committee meeting and she dived into the deep end and pulled the whole thing off without a hitch and it was love at first sight for both of us. That was in 2003 and she is still in touch, visiting me when I happen to be in a town near her, coming to Dehradun whenever she can, calling, writing, sending photos.
The Foundation is about much more than the daily passion for kids with disability. It’s also about relationships, about working together, about sharing stories and accomplishments and new dreams and ideas. And about babies.
Gunjan, I just want to say that I’ll take him. Send that little Sunshine across and you get a good night’s sleep.
Posted in Staff Stories, The Babies | No Comments »
March 6th, 2009 Jo
I first learned about the Apgar Score when I studied to become a midwife. (That was over 25 years ago and for my class project, I got pregnant with Anand and delivered him halfway through the course.)
APGAR stands for:
Activity
Pulse
Grimace
Appearance
Respiration
and is, in my humble opinion, a clumsy acronym for an elegant and incredibly powerful little tool.
I memorized it in class, never realizing how the tool, and the woman behind it - an anesthesiologist named Virginia Apgar - revolutionized the care of newborn babies in trouble, babies who might otherwise have been left to die.
What was it like back in the 30’s when she began practicing medicine?
It wasn’t easy to be a woman physician and it wasn’t safe to be a premature baby. In those days, a baby born with an obvious disability, or too small, or a little blue around the edges was simply put to one side and left to its fate. Doctors believed such infants were too sick to survive and didn’t even bother trying to revive them.
As the anesthetist, not the obstetrician (and a lowly woman in a man’s world), Dr Apgar also didn’t bother trying to change the doctors’ minds. She did something more strategic, more practical and ultimately, more effective: she designed a score sheet.
One minute after delivery, again at five minutes and a third time at ten minutes, the newborn was to be rated against an objective scale and for each parameter, the kid would get two points:
Moving all four limbs? 2
Heart rate over a hundred? 2
Crying? 2
Pink all over? 2
Taking strong, deep breaths? 2
10 points = perfect condition.
Less than 4 = a baby in trouble.
The interesting thing was the change the score sheet engendered in doctors who were once willing to give up on struggling babies based on a vague clinical impression. Dr Apgar must have been an astute student of human nature. She knew that part of the problem was the vagueness. So she quantified it and made it specific: nothing quite like a number. That alone ensured that the baby’s condition was carefully observed.
Then she added the brilliant stroke of scoring again at five minutes and a third time at ten. The implicit assumption is that everything could change in ten minutes. And the underlying knowledge: that doctors are competitive by nature. You can almost hear them thinking: “Four? No way is my baby going to stay at four! Lemme at this kid!”
The Apgar Score may seem simple but it was directly responsible for a host of sophisticated and complex new approaches to newborn infant care. With documented information on the condition of babies suddenly available, it became possible to study the effect of specific interventions like the use of oxygen, different types of anethesia, forceps - you name it.
As people working to improve the lives of children with disabilities, we are constantly trying things out and experimenting with new approaches and ideas. Reading about the logic behind Dr Apgar’s test (in a WONDERFUL book called “Better” by Atul Gawande) convinced me, as nothing ever has before, of the need for documentation. I always thought it was a bureaucratic requirement of funding agencies. I was wrong. It’s revolutionary.
Posted in Bright Ideas, Inspiration, Serious Stuff, The Babies | No Comments »
May 15th, 2008 Jo
My posts have mostly been about my travels for the last month, but I’m back in India now and I’ve spent most of this week visiting the projects and re-acquainting myself with the children, some of whom I was meeting for the first time - like this little charmer here. . .
It’s wonderful to be home, to be re-submerged in the Foundation, meeting the kids, the parents and the amazing people who do the work that keeps it all going.
Posted in The Babies | 1 Comment »
February 14th, 2008 Jo
I had fun watching this little boy trying to construct a tower from plastic blocks. It was too tall for its width and kept toppling, but he was determined. Finally, he took the whole structure, leaned it against the wall and added the yellow crown with a little yelp of delight.
Posted in The Babies | 1 Comment »
February 14th, 2008 Jo
The EIC runs on love and skill. Here’s Nirmala, one of our special educators, conferring with Aarti, physiotherapist and Director of the centre. I was touched by the obvious affection each has for the other: Nirmala’s hand was on Aarti’s shoulder the whole time they were talking. It is a hallmark of the place, and it extends itself naturally to the children and to the mothers who think of it as a second home, with the staff as treasured family members.
Posted in The Babies | No Comments »
February 14th, 2008 Jo
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I visited the EIC this morning (this blog is really inspiring me to get away from my desk!) and watched Puja doing a new kind of speech therapy which she learned from Anne Bruce (our amazing volunteer speech therapist - more on her later!).
Puja said that Baby Ayush drools a lot and Anne suggested gently massaging his chin, cheeks and upper lip to help improve his muscle tone. He certainly seems to approve!
Posted in The Babies | 1 Comment »
