The next day at the clinic was our first day going full speed. Every time I lifted my head up from the patient I was working with, I could see five more waiting. Dan and I were each working two tables with volunteer students from Canada and Australia sharing the fifth. Frank was floating, taking on difficult cases, advising us on things we hadn’t seen before. He was also working with the midwives to introduce acupuncture into the labor and delivery process. This was a new area of practice for us, and Frank and I had taken a seminar in New York taught by Jean Levesque on this topic. Although in the US acupuncture is rarely used for childbirth, in Canada and other countries it has long been known to be very effective in shortening labor, reducing pain and tearing, and markedly lowering the number of ceasarians performed. At Bumi the midwives were very interested in seeing how we might be able to assist them in safely delivering the steady stream of pregnant women flowing through the door.
So at a slower moment during the afternoon clinic Frank came over and asked me to go into the far delivery room to drop a mom’s fever who was in labor. I think he wanted to give me a glimpse of what was going on in the labor and delivery room. Dan had worked with a mom earlier on and had the gratifying experience of walking in for his third treatment just in time to see the baby start to crown with the midwives and dad all kicking into gear.
I walked into a different scene. This mom was alone, feverish and writhing on the bed. She had shown up earlier that day, already in labor and already feverish. Her husband must have brought her in, perhaps he was waiting outside–I didn’t know. But she was hot and sweaty and looking scared. I needled LI11 and LV3 and pretty soon her fever broke and I started packing up my supplies.
Before I could leave, Robin said the mom was starting to push too quickly–her muscles around the pelvic floor weren’t ready and she had a high risk of a serious tear. We had learned some acupuncture protocols to soften the perineum, so I offered to give it a try. From there things developed precipitously.
I began needling–and the effect was immediate. The muscles relaxed and the baby started crowning. The midwives began chanting their welcoming chant to the baby, and moved the mom to the birthing tub. I came along too, and kept needling as I was crouching on the opposite side of the tub, pants rolled up and waded in. But Robin became alarmed, saying that the baby was hot, and suddenly blood bloomed into the tub’s waters and quickly quickly everyone mobilized, getting the mom back on the bed, wiping up blood, shouting orders and maintaining calm in all the chaos. I removed all my needles and watched helplessly as the baby was born but not breathing on its own. Robin immediately began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as everyone else sat around speaking to the baby to come into the world, and trying to reassure the mom who’s face looked so pained and worried.
I left to get more acupuncture help, from Dr. Bobbi who is the resident acupuncturist there, and from Frank who knew where to needle to get that baby to breath. Finally, 20 minutes of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation later, the baby began breathing on his own. We were all hugely relieved, but still there was underlying sadness because he didn’t show the normal reflexes for a newborn and was unresponsive to stimulus.
No one could explain it–he seemed normal in every way, but clearly something was wrong. After some time it was decided to send him to the hospital to see if they could help him in any way. Sadly, despite all of our interventions, including Frank doing qigong for the baby in the hospital, we found out within a couple days that the little one had died, and slowly the story of his family came out in bits and pieces.
The mom and dad were young, 18 and 19. The families were disapproving of their relationship and refused to give permission for them to make a life together. I never could find out why. But in Bali this is a huge barrier. If the family refuses to take in the couple, they literally have nowhere to go. Cut off from their home villages, their sense of meaning and belonging in the world is destroyed. When this couple discovered they were pregnant they grew desperate and the mom went to a village healer for an abortive potion. Robin said she doesn’t know what kind of chemicals the village healers use for this, whether natural or artificial, but the results were that somehow the fetus’ development was impaired even as the abortion failed. And so the sad and traumatic birth I witnessed was the result.
I don’t know what kind of conclusion to draw for you from this story, either personally for myself or on a social level to understand the forces at work. There are so many happy stories to tell, but there were many tragic ones as well. I know it left me with a deep sadness, and I was always grateful to see the mom coming into our afternoon clinic where I could treat her with acupuncture and bodywork to heal from her grief. I got to see her recovery from that day on, and met her partner, and was hopeful for her to find a way to move forward. She had a kind of raw strength that I saw in her face as she gave birth that seemed elemental in its power. I wish her well. In this intense sliver of her life she touched me deeply. She is another texture and fierce color to mix in to the magnificent tapestry of humanity I encountered in Bali.
