The theme of my trip is Crying Infants…I need a better theme ☹

Thursday, August 26

We had a long day at the clinic today, but we are close to getting the number of women we need each day to reach close to 90 infants. In between collections I was bouncing between our clinic and the laboratory next door. I was observing a breastmilk and plasma collection (my thesis is analyzing breastmilk and plasma (infant and maternal), so it was important for me to observe the collection process while I’m here. During the blood draw for the infant I ended up retreating back to our clinic. When our infants cry, I know it’s not because they are actually in pain, it’s just because they don’t like having the swab in their mouth or because they’re scared of me. But, watching the little baby scream and knowing that getting the needle in your arm for a blood draw does actually kind of hurt, I felt so horrible even just standing there-like I was contributing to the pain. I don’t know how mothers do it- it has to be horrible the first time you take your baby to get shots or vaccines!

Some random observations:

• I’ve noticed recently that some of the infants that are brought in for our study have their eyebrows penciled in-both boy and girl babies.
• If someone is eating and you are near them, they will often politely invite you to join in by simply stating “you’re invited”. The first time someone said this, I was so confused, I asked: “I’m invited to what?”
• In order to charge some of my electronics while I am here I brought an adaptor, but I also learned that I have to turn on the miniature light switch next to the outlet in order to activate the outlet.
• I have noticed that some of the study babies (mostly girls but some boys) wear beads around their waists. While the infants have to be weighed naked, it is accepted that the beads stay on. These infants will wear the beads from the time of birth until they are (in many cases) adults. It is not only thought to be beautiful, but also that the beads help shape the woman’s hips.