HARD TRUTHS ABOUT SAVING LIVES IN WEST AFRICA
HUFFINGTON POST IMPACT
BY DIANE POWELL, MAVERICK COLLECTIVE MEMBER, LICENSED CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER, PHILANTHROPIST, VOLUNTEER
Diane Powell shares the “hard truths” she’s learned in delivering care for moms and babies in rural Senegal.
Mariama was in trouble. Alone in her hut in a remote village in southern Senegal, she had managed to successfully deliver her baby boy. But something was wrong. Mariama’s labor pains continued, agonizingly painful, and there was blood everywhere. Like virtually all of the women in Dialadian, Mariama had had no prenatal care. She didn’t know that she was carrying twins, and that the second baby was transverse – lying horizontally across her womb.