This is Josue, a new baby boy that has come to live at Dorothy's. His mother and father died in the flooding in Gonaives while he was staying with his aunt in Port-au-Prince. She is in school and cannot afford to care for Josue, so she brought him to us. He's a very healthy 9 month old but we agreed to keep him until he is old enough to eat real food and go back to his aunt.
Dr. Ed called me on Sunday afternoon while he was doing physicals for children at a feeding program in one of the neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. He said he had 2 malnourished children - could we take them? He delivered the family to our house and Natasha and I sat down to figure out what to do.
The older child was a 4 year old boy in the beginning stages of kwashikor, a protein deficiency malnutrition where the child's lower limbs become swollen, his hair turns orange and his skin begins to flake off. This boy only had the swollen legs. We prayed about him and talked it over together, but we decided not to take him. Dorothy's mission is supposed to be for infants and 4 years is a pretty long way beyond infant. I gave them peanut butter to feed the boy 3 times a day and we told the mother that we would talk to Dorothy and to other people that we know and see if we can find another solution for him.
We did take Miltha, the 9 month old girl. She is in a general state of malnourishment, simply because her mother is very malnourished so the breast milk she has been drinking has not been sufficient or abundant enough. She is strong enough to drink from a bottle, so we're going to start chunking her up!
This is Josue, a new baby boy that has come to live at Dorothy's. His mother and father died in the flooding in Gonaives while he was staying with his aunt in Port-au-Prince. She is in school and cannot afford to care for Josue, so she brought him to us. He's a very healthy 9 month old but we agreed to keep him until he is old enough to eat real food and go back to his aunt.
Dr. Ed called me on Sunday afternoon while he was doing physicals for children at a feeding program in one of the neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. He said he had 2 malnourished children - could we take them? He delivered the family to our house and Natasha and I sat down to figure out what to do.
The older child was a 4 year old boy in the beginning stages of kwashikor, a protein deficiency malnutrition where the child's lower limbs become swollen, his hair turns orange and his skin begins to flake off. This boy only had the swollen legs. We prayed about him and talked it over together, but we decided not to take him. Dorothy's mission is supposed to be for infants and 4 years is a pretty long way beyond infant. I gave them peanut butter to feed the boy 3 times a day and we told the mother that we would talk to Dorothy and to other people that we know and see if we can find another solution for him.
We did take Miltha, the 9 month old girl. She is in a general state of malnourishment, simply because her mother is very malnourished so the breast milk she has been drinking has not been sufficient or abundant enough. She is strong enough to drink from a bottle, so we're going to start chunking her up!
No comments:
Post a Comment