This has been a very exciting month in Haiti as the Healthy Mothers + Healthy Babies program started opening its doors to patients! There have already been stories of heartbreak, but also stories of hope. If you missed the stories of our first patients last week, you can read those here.

 

After just several weeks of being officially open for patients, there are already 50 mothers enrolled in the program. This rapid enrollment clearly shows that there has been a need in the community for years.

 

And our most exciting news for the month… we welcomed our first baby born at the WWV medical center on March 31st… a little girl! 

 

Pictured: WWV midwife (Magdala) with new baby

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has supported this new program. We are excited to see how God will use Healthy Mothers + Healthy Babies to bless moms and babies in rural Haiti and point them to Christ as they experience God’s love. 

MEET PRINCE! 

 

We also want you to meet Marc Dominique… the local Williamson matron (traditional birth attendant) known in the community as Prince. Prince is 61 years old and has lived in Williamson for 17 years. He and his wife have seven children.

Prince never dreamed he would become a matron until just that… a dream!  Many years ago, Prince had a dream that a woman was in labor. In the dream, she asked him to help her deliver her baby. When he insisted that he didn’t know how to deliver a baby, she gave him instructions until a healthy baby was born. From that night on he committed his life to helping moms and babies in his village.

Growing up in rural Haiti 60 years ago, Prince did not have the opportunity to attend school or learn to read and write. This has made it very difficult for him to receive formal training in midwifery.

You can imagine his excitement when World Wide Village offered a 22-week training course for all the matrons in Williamson – with no reading or writing requirements and free of charge!  The 22-week course taught by the new WWV midwife utilizes songs and pictures to train matrons who cannot read or write.

In his time working as a traditional birth attendant, Prince has delivered 619 babies and last week he delivered five babies in just one day alone. Delivering babies in rural Haiti, he has witnessed the struggles of so many mothers and babies living in extreme poverty.

“Many of the mothers do not know how to be healthy during their pregnancy,” he said. “Many of them have nothing.” Until now, it has been very hard for mothers in Williamson (and those living in the mountains above Williamson) to access care. Prince even delivered a baby on a tire on the side of the road.

Thanks to you, mothers and babies in rural Haiti will now have much better access to prenatal care, medications, birthing supplies and education. Thank you for making an amazing impact!