Thar Dar, mother of the twins went 6 months without knowing she was pregnant as there were no physical tip-offs of pregnancy. Around 6th month in, her belly was rapidly swelling so she went to see a doctor in the village, and it turned out that she was pregnant. She had numbers of questions regarding the pregnancy and infant care but could not ask because she cannot speak the Thai language.
“It takes about 2 hours each way, and transportation cost is burdensome but I wanted to know about my baby and my condition.”
The newborn twins, Aung and Mar (alias) were delivered in Mae Tao Clinic 5 days ago. Their parents are from Bago division[1] in Burma but moved to Thailand 7 years ago. They do not hold any official identification documents but have a temporary stay permit issued by a village leader which needs to be extended every 3 months with 500 THB charges. The twins’ father and mother are hired as daily laborers and earn 150 THB and 130 THB per day respectively. Their income is intermittent and is lower than the minimum wage in the region.[2]
“with our income, we cannot easily seek medical care in Thailand. Our village consists of migrant workers from Burma; of them some are undocumented. Police knows about this and thus they raid the village regularly. Whenever this happens many villagers go hide inside the jungle for a couple of days and we follow them as we also fear of being arrested although we have a temporary stay permit. While we are hiding, we inevitably miss work.”
Thar Dar (alias), mother of the twins went 6 months without knowing she was pregnant as there were no physical tip-offs of pregnancy. Around 6th month in, her belly was rapidly swelling so she went to see a doctor in the village, and it turned out that she was pregnant. She had numbers of questions regarding the pregnancy and infant care but could not ask because she cannot speak the Thai language.
“That is the moment when I decided to come to Mae Tao Clinic. It takes about 2 hours each way, and transportation cost is burdensome but I wanted to know about my baby and my condition.”
Before the delivery, she attended Mae Tao Clinic’s antenatal care services 3 times. Fortunately, there were no complications during the delivery. First child weigh 2 kg while the second one weigh 1.8 kg. Following the Reproductive Health department protocol, health worker of MTC admitted twins to monitor and provide milk powder until the second baby gains weight up to 2 kg.
Newborns already received the first-round vaccinations and their birth was registered with the Thai authorities.
“we are very glad to welcome our twins to our family. We thank Mae Tao Clinic for the great care before and after the delivery. And we’d like to show our gratitude to donors who support maternal and delivery care. Without their support we could not afford the delivery cost.
We still want more children in the future although we have not made a clear family plan yet. We think we will go back to Burma eventually. When our children grow up we want them to study in Burma. So, I am going back to the hometown with children first and my husband will join us later.”
We aim to ensure specific training for our midwives, improved clinical supervision and improved infection control in the delivery room. We regularly review the patients we referred and monitor our referral outcomes. Of 1,786 admissions to Reproductive Health In-patient Department in 2018, 1,651 babies were safely delivered at Mae Tao Clinic while 135 women were referred to other health facilities for advanced emergency obstetric care.
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[1] Bago is a city and the capital of the Bago Region in Burma/Myanmar. It is located 91 kilometres (57 miles) north-east of Yangon (Capital of Burma/Myanmar). [Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bago,_Myanmar]
[2] Although THB 310 – 330 (USD 9.9 – 10.5) is the minimum daily wage in Thailand, many migrant workers receive lower income as many of them work without work permit.