Thursday, June 28, 2007

Macgyver Midwives




couple Middies in training

Here's to you Lindz....
Have you ever thought of those "never gonna happen" situations but you want to be prepared for just in case??...Well my roomies and i were sitting in a Taxi the other night getting ready to send Lindz off to Canada and we were thinking..if someone were to go into labor on the plane we could totally deliver the baby!!!! we could be the one that when everyone freaked out on the plane and were like " is there Doctor on the plane?" we cold answer back..."no, but there is a midwife!" ha ha ....Maguiver status. so we all made up a list of the things we could find on the plane to substitute for medical supplies. Luckily working in a third world country it has prepared us a bit for this kind of resourceful delivery...here is what we came up with..
1. Straw: from the mini bar to use instead of a bulb syringe for suctioning
2. Plastic Prep Gloves: that the stewardesses use to prep the food, we can use these to catch the baby with, obviously not sterile but we are being remorseful remember
3. Pads: ask a female for a pad to use after birth...
4. Newspaper: ask the guy sitting next to the mom if we could barrow his newspaper to put under the mom so we can measure blood loss, and also so she has something besides airplane seats to give birth on
5. cup of Ice: ask the mini bar for a cup of ice and water for moms hydration and thirst appetite, and lets go ahead and order some peanuts while were there, and perhaps a glass of wine for relaxation.
6. Towel: heat towel in Microwave for baby after delivery to keep warm
7. Plastic Bag: to wrap placenta in after delivery, we would keep it attached to baby until we landed and could cut cord with a sterile blade
8. Kick out people from First class and set up camp there.
9. Airplane Blanket and Pillow
10. Flashlight
11. Watch with a second hand
PS: All this is depending on the very unlikely scenario that there is no first aid kit on the plane...that the airport let a 38 week women on the flight, and also that as a midwife you had to check in your Midwife kit because the security guards thought you were a terrorist...but if all the did happen this would be my protocol.

4 comments:

middie said...

let me just say that I hope you can put all this into practice someday to prove that you truly are...macgyver

Karyn said...

Alex- I feel very confident you could deliver a baby anywhere...plane, train or automobile. We love reading your blog and seeing the pics of all the little filipino babies. We can't wait for you to meet our giant american baby. She's 22 weeks and getting very chubby. Stay safe and keep up the good work.
Love,
A woman who had many sutures (aka Karyn Gragg)

Kim said...

i have so thought that one out before! ha! on my first fight enroute to the phils i sat there and planned the whole thing out. now that i've actually delivered a baby i think that'd be a lot better of a situation!
good job girls! -K

Jen Grisim said...

haha that's so awesome. I definitely keep several pairs of sterile and non sterile gloves in my bag. You never know right?