After Grief, Joy: Haitian Woman Delivers Healthy Premature Baby at Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais

Ronith, 31, lives in Port-au-Prince. In nine years of marriage, she had been pregnant five times yet had no surviving children.

This story comes from our friends at Partners for Health and we couldn’t be happier to share it with you.

After Grief, Joy: Haitian Woman Delivers Healthy Premature Baby at Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais

Ronith Desperot was six months pregnant and worried. Ronith, 31, lives in Port-au-Prince. In nine years of marriage, she had been pregnant five times yet had no surviving children.

Four times, her pregnancies ended in miscarriage between 6 and 8 months. After her 5th pregnancy she gave birth to a baby who seemed healthy, but a few days later he became sick.

She and her husband went from hospital to hospital and couldn’t find care for him. He was 8 days old when he died.

“I have suffered a lot over those pregnancies and the baby I lost. It has been so hard,” Ronith said. “I have really been longing to have this baby.”

Deciding to seek health care far from home wasn’t easy. But on July 22, she left Port-au-Prince and traveled with her sister Wideline to Mirebalais, a city in the Central Plateau about two hours from the capital. She had heard there was a new hospital there, Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais (University Hospital), operated by Partners In Health in collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Health.

Ronith was admitted to the antepartum unit, the specialized unit for pregnant women at risk for complications. After learning her history of complicated pregnancy, doctors and nurses monitored her closely as her due date approached. Then, at 33 weeks, Ronith began to show symptoms of severe preeclampsia.

Preeclampsia — a sudden rise in blood pressure during pregnancy — is a dangerous condition for both mother and baby. In Haiti, preeclampsia and eclampsia — seizures that follow preeclampsia — are the leading cause of maternal death. The only known solution is to deliver the baby.

But Ronith’s pregnancy was still 7 weeks short of full-term — the baby would be very premature. In the U.S. and other wealthy countries, developments in neonatal medicine now help premature babies breathe, eat, and stay warm, dramatically increasing the survival rate of infants with access to the latest medicine.

Today, close to 99% of newborn deaths occur in developing countries. In Haiti, an estimated 1 in 40 newborns does not survive the first 28 days of life. Trained caregivers and equipment to provide specialized care — incubators, oxygen, breast pumps, even the electricity that keeps such technology running — is unavailable in many places. Fragile newborns must sometimes be transferred long distances on difficult roads to reach care.

University Hospital was built to handle such complex cases, and to receive at-risk pregnant women and infants from other public clinics around the Central Plateau. There is a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) able to handle premature infants with special needs.

Ob-Gyn Dr. Christophe Millien decided Ronith needed to deliver the baby. On Sept. 10, he performed a cesarean section: it was a boy.

“The baby was very premature, and we brought him immediately to the NICU,” said midwife Meredith Casella Jean-Baptiste.

Meredith helped Ronith pump breastmilk for the baby with a donated breast pump, and a few days later her son, Samuel Victory Fédé, was able to breastfeed. She stops by the NICU every few hours to feed her son. After they are discharged, Ronith will return to have her stitches removed and receive other follow-up care from the surgery. She’ll also receive a routine check-up for her high blood pressure. If she chooses, she’ll receive counseling and options for family planning.

“I feel so good to bring the baby home with me to our house,” Ronith said. “I’m really so happy now.”