Bicanna foreheads

Another busy day. We were so impressed by the theatre staff last night because it was so smooth and very like a British operating theatre. There is air conditioning  in the theatre itself but none in the changing rooms which made it very hot. The baby was the biggest we've seen here: 4kg (Bengali babies are small). Today we were both in the antenatal clinic and were looking after the low risk pregnancies.  The women often book much later here - probably because they don't have pregnancy tests. The nearest ultrasound scanner is 14 km away because it is difficult to get a license for the machine because of female foetuside. We saw about 20 ladies and are becoming a bit more confident about determining the position of the baby. On the ward round we saw that one of the mothers had put faeces  (bicanna in Bengali) on her baby's forehead as is custom here. Elisabeth gave her a proper telling off because the baby could eat it, get loose stool, and become dehydrated.  The woman's mother in law was telling Elisabeth not to he scared of it to which Elisabeth said you should be scared the baby could die. It is so interesting to see these strange cultural practices. We both managed to have little naps after lunch- it was too hot to do anything else. Back at the hospital I got to see a delivery.  They have no pain relief other than paracetamol and the mother was incredible.  A 3kg baby and the nurses promised Elisabeth some sweets for correctly guessing the weight of the baby. Neil went back to see the baby with the heart problem and checked his oxygen levels. They were a bit low so he is being transferred to another hospital in Bankura (the main city and the name of the part of west Bengal we are in). Still not used to the heat or the many bites that we both have from mosquitoes.  We are starting to plan out travel for the end of our trip. Every where we are going seems to be described as cool. We are very much looking forward to this! J x