Protective Custody is a documentary portrait series about pregnant inmates entering the WCCW (Washington Corrections Center for Women) who qualify for a prison nursery program. After giving birth, the mothers maintain custody of their babies while serving relatively short prison sentences rather than being separated during this developmentally critical time. Healthy maternal-infant attachment is promoted in a protective, supportive, and safe environment. I began working on this portrait documentary in 2003 with hopes of bringing this invisible and voiceless population into public consciousness. The work continues to raise awareness about multiple issues that the incarceration of minimum security, pregnant inmates and their families face.
For more information about the Prison Nursery at the Washington Corrections Center for Women: www.protectivecustody.org
On my first day at St. Therese Hospital I enter the postpartum room with Gladias, my interpreter. Although I am in a foreign country, I feel completely at home in maternity wards. I pick up my camera and get to work. I am there for only three hours when a pregnant woman in labor is carried – literally carried by two men holding on to her arms and legs - into the room having eclamptic seizures. She is laid on a bare, plastic-covered mattress while the Skilled Birth Attendants (SBAs), students, and infirmieres auxiliaires (licensed practical nurses) rush over to start an IV and administer magnesium sulfate. The young woman's mother remains at the bedside fanning her daughter's face in the tropical heat of the afternoon. Thankfully, this woman continued in active labor and a healthy baby was born several hours later. Eclampsia can be deadly.
The SBAs work very hard. A quiet interlude is a welcome respite from a pending emergency. It is not overdramatic to say that birth and death are constants here. Through it all, Excellente St. Rose, a janitor at St. Therese Hospital for the past 16 years, drifts amongst the rooms, cleaning as she goes, contributing to the upkeep and conversation within. Before the SBAs started working at St. Therese, the janitors caught babies. I asked Excellente how many babies she had delivered back in the days and she laughed, "… many, many!"
Haiti has the highest maternal and infant mortality and morbidity rates in the Western Hemisphere. The lack of skilled childbirth attendants is the primary cause of needless suffering and deaths of these mothers and babies. Midwives for Haiti located in Hinche, the capital city of the Central Plateau, is an organization founded by Nadene Brunk, Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM), and her colleagues to address this need. After traveling to Haiti in 2003 as part of a medical team, Nadene witnessed first hand the lack of resources and skilled care for pregnant women. Determined to provide a long-term solution, she formed a small team of volunteer midwives and medical professionals and soon returned to Haiti. At the request of a Haitian community leader, she established a rigorous 12-month, culturally appropriate training program for Haitian nurses in Hinche. Graduates are empowered with the knowledge and experience to save the lives of mothers and babies. They are employed at St. Therese Hospital and other health centers throughout Haiti and provide prenatal and postnatal care in remote rural locations. Midwives For Haiti has graduated 95 Skilled Birth Attendants with another 30 students in Class 8 beginning their course in the summer of 2015.
Media attention to the needless and devastating deaths of women and infants, particularly those in developing countries, has recently increased largely driven by the United Nation's Millennium Developmental Goals #4 and #5. Since 2011, I have made three trips on behalf of Midwives for Haiti, recording what I have learned through my lens and writing. The spirit of the Haitian people and important work done through Midwives for Haiti are what compel me to return.
More about Midwives for Haiti can be learned here: https://midwivesforhaiti.org My blog from my initial trip in 2011 is here: http://hannatruscott.blogspot.com
It all started in May 2010 when Shaine, my then-26 year old darling daughter, asked me if I would go on a volunteer medical trip with her overseas. She knew just which buttons to push: volunteer, medical, midwifery, overseas, mother-daughter time.
Why Mongolia? Our requirements were to find a volunteer project in a developing country that was non-religiously affiliated, that would offer flexible time frame commitments, and that could accommodate both Shaine's curiosity about medical care and my interest in midwifery. An opportunity to become involved in Mongolia, out of scores of countries, won out.
The Maternal and Child Health Research Institute is the largest maternity hospital in the country, located in an imposing six-storied building in Ulaanbaatar where 9612 babies were born in 2009. This is the hospital where Shaine and I embraced our Mongolian health care experience.
Shaine and I co-wrote a blog about our experiences. Shaine has a lovely dry sense of humor : http://hannatruscott.blogspot.com You have to scroll down to the beginning for entries about Mongolia.
One day in May 1986, I received a letter announcing a tour to China in October focused on maternal-child care. My old college love affair with anthropology came rushing back to remind me of my desire to study midwifery practices in exotic foreign lands, I was so excited about the proposed tour that I could hardly sleep that night! I felt that taking in this experience, however limited by a two-week schedule and a carefully planned itinerary, would somehow make an indelible impression on my life. I decided I had to go.
From my paper, Commentary on the Chinese Maternity Healthcare System, 1986.
