Tag: Transformation

Measuring Malnutrition

“How sweet!  She looks so healthy with her chubby cheeks!”

Sometimes malnutrition is easy to spot– a three month old clocking in at only 3 pounds, her ribs prominent, her crying only consoled by a bottle of milk that she quickly consumes.

But in other cases, malnutrition can be very difficult to detect to the untrained eye.  Clothed and standing on a scale, a child can sometimes meet all the criteria to be deemed ‘healthy’, but through skillful assessment and observation, you can gain a more accurate picture of what is going on ‘beneath the surface.’  This type of malnutrition is silent and insidious and is claiming the lives of many children here in remote Guatemala.  Hope of Life is fighting daily to reverse the statistics.

So, heads up… NERD ALERT.  This purpose of this blog post is to give a little bit of medical perspective to what we see and treat daily here in Guatemala.  Today, I am only focusing on the two types of acute malnutrition we treat most often here in rural Guatemala– Marasmus and Kwashiorkor.

 

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How to Save the World

Spoiler alert : you can’t do it alone.

We’ve all heard the cheesy story about the starfish, right?  Here’s a condensed version — a father and son are walking along the beach, and there are hundreds of starfish that have washed ashore.  The starfish are dying because they are out of water.  The kid begins throwing them in one by one, the dad makes a remark about how ‘you can’t save all of them’ and the kid replies ‘yeah, but I saved that one.’

I’ve come to realize how true that really is.  A few weeks ago, I shared on my instagram a story of the ripple effect that helping others has.  I’ll share it below:

Several months ago, Hope of Life rescued a little baby girl named Estefani. She was malnourished due to feeding problems related to a birth defect. Months later, she is healthy and now awaiting a surgery date to repair her double cleft lip and palate.
Her precious mama told us about her neighbors who just gave birth to two tiny, precious twin girls. “They are chiquititas, como Estefani!” she reflected on when Estefani was first admitted into our care. Yesterday, Hope of Life arranged for the little 4lb babies to be brought in. They are our third set of twin girls this year, and I’m so proud of Estefani’s mama for making us aware of them.
This is why you do for one what you wish you could do for everyone. Helping others is not some sort of debilitating crutch that leads them into a life of dependancy… Rather, giving help is an extension of your hand to lift them out of their current situation. If it is done in grace, love, and with some education, it can truly change future generations. Empowered people empower people. [Acts 20:35]
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This is rural Guatemala.

“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.” -William Wilberforce

Today was Yennifer’s “going home” day.  As morbid as this may sound, I never thought we would see this day.

I remember vividly the day she was brought in.  I wasn’t even sure she was alive at first.  She was 6 years old and only weighed 9 pounds.  “How is this even possible?” I thought to myself.

Her skin was dry and flaking off in areas, her pulse was thready and beating at 38 beats per minute, her breathing slow and still.  I choked back my own tears as we undressed her to do a full assessment.  She didn’t stir, she didn’t fight, she didn’t even wince.  She was much too weak for any of that. Continue reading This is rural Guatemala.