Ferment The Humors

"Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness."
-Joseph Addison, The Spectator, July 12, 1711English essayist, poet, & politician (1672 - 1719)

"A good exercise for the heart is to bend down and help another up."
-Anonymous

"The need of exercise is a modern superstition, invented by people who ate too much and had nothing to think about."
-George SantayanaUS (Spanish-born) philosopher (1863 - 1952)

I spent a lot of time in the OB department because they expect to have a couple of deliveries this weekend. I learned some very interesting information about the OB care that I thought I would share. The doctors and midwives that I am working with have been delivering babies for over 30 years. Women are never given any pain medication during deliveries (including epidurals). They seemed a little confused why I would even ask about it. The more I thought about it the more I was convinced that it was not a good idea to push the issue. When you give a laboring mother pain medication, like morphine, it can occasionally effect the baby. Since they have no way of monitoring the status of the baby, and they will probably end up giving too much of the pain medicine, I decided that it was probably better if they kept the status quo going. Not to mention, they really do not have a way to resuscitate a baby if something were to go wrong.

They also do not believe in braking the bag that holds in the amniotic fluid. In the states we sometimes break it to help speed the delivery. The doctors were very adamant that it should never be done. They gave somewhat of a strange reason for it, something about how the placenta will go up through the diaphragm and the baby will not be able to breath. It was another case where they were probably better off not doing it because, again, they do not have any way of monitoring the baby and they may end up doing more harm in the process.

Another big difference is the length of time a women stays in the hospital. I have been told that they are discharged only 3 hours after the baby is born. I bet HMOs would love to set up shop over here. When I was pushing for there to be 2 beds in the maternity ward for the mothers to sleep in over night the head physician looked at me with a stern face. I knew that I was about to get a talking to. He said to me, "I have been practicing in this hospital for 31 years. We have never had beds in the maternity department before." I tend to pick my battles and this was one that I felt pretty adamant about. Infant and maternal mortality is pretty dismal in Afghanistan and this 3 hour discharge may be part of the reason. It only took 20 minutes to change 31 years habit.

Some of their practices were similar to the way we do things, we both perform episiotomies and we both also encourage breastfeeding.

LtCol Johnson relayed a funny story to me. He told of how the Physical Therapist provided him with a list of things that he needed. This was the same person that has the UV tunnel that is suppose to help heal injuries. LtCol Johnson was excited to finally receive a list requesting supplies that was generated through the proper channels. Could he be asking for heating pads? Elastic bands? Maybe some orthotic devices or braces? Here was his list:

1. A computer
2. Some rugs
3. Tennis shoes

He asked the Physical Therapist why he needed the tennis shoes and he said so his patients could run on the treadmill. When he asked him what size shoes he needed his reply was, "Small, medium, and large." It could be like a bowling alley. You could turn in your slippers for tennis shoes to help ferment the humors.

When we got back to our base we went to a going-away celebration for our Wolf Pack friends. It was held at the Ministry of Defense. We enjoyed naan, kabobs, and rice. The Wolf Pack were the ones that taught us how to do our convoys. We will try and pass the information on to the group that replaces us.

Thanks for reading.