The life of a 50 y/o mother of
4 children and wife of a sweet husband, lived in Marcelino Pangasinan, met in
our medical mission at Balungao Pangasinan, not a college graduate nor high
school but certainly act as professional HILOT, in service of HILOT for 20
years with less than 100 babies delivered.
A happy and smiling face woman
with confident gestures, such a lovely mother and wife and a courage “ilaw ng
tahanan” is no other than “nanay Violeta”. :D (I intentionally not to ask her
family name just for the sake of her security from criticism of other people.)
I can divide her story in 3.
As a novice
provincial Hilot in their Bario
As an
experienced provincial Hilot in their Bario
As a wife and
mother
Violeta once became a novice amateur midwife
Most of our first time seems
to be the nerve racking experience but exclude this courageous woman who faced
her first time in HILOT with no fear.
To make brief background on
her amateur obstetric way, she was 24 years of age when she started to
accompany her mother, a professional midwifery practitioner with license, in
clinic to help mothers delivering their babies out from their womb. She was
absolutely a keen observer standing before, after, beside her mother while
hearing mother’s highest pitch voice and cries laying in the bed, have a great
open eyes on every mother’s baby during delivery. For 6 years of assisting and observing
mother’s delivery in clinic and in house, she then hooked up her first time.
She lived with her family; her
mother lived in a separate house. A neighbor and pregnant mother who have in
due labored in everybody’s sweet dreams time, a friend of her intensively
knocked on their breakable door that caught their normal reaction, “mejo
galit”. Facing her friend before their house and said annoyingly: “anong
problema? (she spoke in Ilocano). She replied, “si (forgot the name)
manganganak na, samahan mo lang ako”.
They went together in forgot the name’s house. She handed over
the situation wherein she was supposed to observe and assist someone in
delivering the baby. She was cheated but paid P5 after she heard the baby’s
first word “CRY”. It’s like music in her ears that soothe her heart and freeing
mind and heart from all problems. Peacefully manner the heart pumps through
valves and circulate in system that energized whole body and mindfully triggers
brain to stimulate happy hormones reflects on her face. “para akong lumulutang
sa saya nun, hindi ko maipaliwanag yung saya at lakas na naramdaman ko nun,
para akong nagkaron ng bagong battery sa katawan, nawala lahat ng pagod ko,
grabe” she happily said with hand gestures.
She’s not the type of person
who’ll easily get in trouble with anyone else because she was fooled, cheated
and somebody’s topic but just don’t hurt her family. So together with her friend, they shared
experiences of tonight’s HILOT. It was a challenging experience.
While in
the middle of delivery, lights turned off. It was brown out. Everyone behind
her standing panicked out but her. She insisted them to give her a small light
bulb to focus on baby’s portal to come out. So it happened, light bulb operated
by the big battery, they called it motolite, used to successfully delivered a
beautiful baby girl.
Followed by many hilot
experiences, she became famous in some of the barrios in Pangasinan, her mother
make her use of her licensed in midwifery. So babies in her hands will have a
legal name registered in municipality of Pangasinan then NSO afterwards.
Violeta has been continuing HILOT since 1992.
Many Hilot experiences have
been successfully done until now. Literally this day because before hand of the
medical mission, her relative used to labour today and scheduled to deliver her
baby girl. They were very thankful because the clinic in Bayan is open due to
medical mission event. Thank God, she delivered a healthy baby girl at exactly
7:20 in the morning. She’s really helpful in their province.
I have burst questions throw
to her regarding her job, I have so much interest in her job.
1. How
much is your rate in Hilot service?
Time passes, she started from
P5 but now, it’s 1000 per delivery. Oops, she has a big heart, though it is
rated P700 – P1000, she gives discount down to 50% and sometimes, installment
way of paying full P1000.
2. Do you
use anaesthesia?
No, she replied and added it’s
painful in mother’s side to deliver a baby in first stage of laboring but later
on when baby started to come out and palpate the head from mother’s portal,
it’s slowly becoming numb according to her. And of course, she’s not trained
about injection process. It is besides they were in province. Hospitals and
clinics were too far from their houses. So hilots were the primary person to
contact about rather than bringing the laboring pregnant mother to the maternal
clinic which is about an hour/hours, worse part, sometimes it is close.
3. Are you
trained in doing hilot?
When I was 24 years old, I was
with my mother (doctor), assisting her with her patients, giving her a hand of
help to let them deliver their babies safely and that gives me the opportunity
to know and observe things about it. To some extent, aside from observing
everything about her mother’s skill in performing midwifery, she used to know
things by herself through the experiences she had practiced in her entire life
of being hilot. And that makes her more trained, knowledgeable and safer Hilot
doer.
Hilot as I define people who have
practiced midwifery in such a way they were not legal to do it but because of
poor education and less opportunity to send people who were capable of doing
such thing in college/universities due to financial constraint so they come up
by doing hilot. Unprofessional to think they are but helpful in giving one life
to live longer in the world. Thus, they are acceptable in provinces. They were
trusted and thanked for their adept knowledge about midwifery
4. What
are your preparations prior to hilot?
Of course, preggy mom knew
everything about the things needed for delivering the child from their womb.
Sanitized towels, blanket, baby things, lamp in case of emergency, alcohol,
gloves, soap, water, unused clothes. No any other things that might hurt
mother. She surely knows it because she’s a mother too.
5. How
do you do it?
She confidently admitted, she
does IE on her own hand measurement, she knew when to push baby out from
mother’s womb, she knew when to force a hand inside the mother’s portal just to
let the baby face the world for the first time and safely move out arms and
legs. Let be their cry first music to be heard by a mother.
What? a hand inside? My co-PT
painfully asks in moderate voice. It’s painful and it hurts every woman in the
world. No! Violeta staunchly defended herself. “I know when to insert a hand, I
can feel when it is already tight or when it would slip in. “madulas naman eh”.
Besides it is numb for a mother who is shouting for her baby to come out
quickly.” Fearful to think for me but she said it’s not painful and no injuries
reported against her so it may probably safe.
When the baby’s head felt from
mother’s portal and “panubigan” explodes greatly and the IE is like “pwet na ng
manok” it is the time and ready to pull out the baby, it is the signal to help
her push the baby out, make 3 turns intermittently on the baby’s body while it isn’t
yet fully out from mother’s portal. Inserting a hand inside, of course she was
wearing a glove, to touch baby’s back and shoulder and then pulling it out
slowly and intermittently. After seconds, hang up the baby from the foot and
punch the butt and let the baby cry.
What if the baby didn’t cry?
What did you do? Interval seconds to 3 minutes, repeat hitting the baby’s butt
in hang up position and let baby cries.
What’s probably the reason why
the baby did not cry from first butt-hit? Most of the case happened due to “barado
ang bibig, maaring may blood inside that cause the baby to react not from the
hand hit over his butt”. She indeed confessed.
What happened to pusod? My
follow up question, It was cut using “sinulid” but before it does, a pressure
using thumb and index fingers were used after when the beat/pulse off from the
“pusod”. That was the time it was pinched tightly. It is advisable that a
mother should have a prepared clip to conveniently and effectively and safely
cut it.
This how normally happened to
her experiences
6. Have
you ever handled a bridge baby?
Suhi? Or Suwi?... yes it
happened to her experiences. But how she does it, this is one of her story. It
happened that baby’s foot comes first. Therefore, she usually pushes it back
inside and inserts her hand inside to feel the other foot and pull it out. Same
processes happened as she turns it and pull its shoulder and head carefully and
slowly move out the body, specially the head.
7. Is
there a cord coil baby you encountered?
Yes, there’s one baby wrapped
by its cord, wandering cord wrapped around all over his body, even in the neck.
Crazy how it happens but she was so witty that she, indeed, makes a blessed
move to help her move the baby out in this challenging come out. Cord coiled in
the neck, left shoulder, abdomen and right hip. God moves her to decide on how
to safely move out the baby. Baby was in danger of course from breathing
restriction due to cord wrapped around the neck. So she used to hold baby’s one
hand in bended handgrip under the chin to let the head up and breath in and out
unrestrictedly and carefully move the baby out from mother’s possession. She
really amazes my innocence. I admire her most.
Violeta as mother and wife
Her experience as a mother and
Hilot practitioner, she actually imparts herself a big percentage in making
herself delivered a baby with the help of her mother. She had 4 children. She’s
the one to signal her mother if she’s ready to deliver a baby. She prepared
things, used to IE herself, and pushed herself with her own hand. Really, it’s
painful she couldn’t make believe she survived from great pain. Hence, she knew
exactly the pain will gone after delivered her son. She feels every mother’s
pain passed from her hand. The pain is like LBM, intense LBM I couldn’t
imagine. It’s the pain that is most tiring episodes of a mother’s life but the
happiest moment of their lives that reminds them their baby’s voice, CRY.
A life of Violeta is like
Cactus in the dessert. She always have conserved water to nourish her part, her
family notwithstanding of all insufficiencies in life. She still lives for her
family. Of course, we understand financial constraint of every family,
particularly in provinces so it is aside from hilot, she also import “kamatis”,
sacks of tomatoes from Marcelino to Urdaneta for an extra dividends she could
use for their needs. Tired she was that time, Hilot plus selling tomatoes, but
it can be neutralized by her hardworking husband: “baket, pagod ka ba?
Naglalambing na tanong, may konting massage and serve her food in the morning
and when she arrived at home. Opps, baket? Ano po yun? This term is equivalent
of darling. Ahhhh…. Ok,sweet. :D
It was 10 am already and stories
end when I reminded her, she needs to put herself in line of patients’
registration for dental and pharma services.
My take:
Something you wanna know:
