When Dar was two years old her parents moved to Thailand to search better care for Dar’s injured legs at Mae Tao Clinic as Dar got severe burn wounds at her mother’s workplace. 18 years old Dar delivered her first baby daughter at Mae Tao Clinic.
18 years old Dar delivered her first baby daughter at Mae Tao Clinic on 18 November 2019. Dar is from Burma but currently lives in Mae Sot area, Thailand. She lives together with ten other family members, but only four of them have occasional jobs to support the family: they are hired as daily workers.
Her parents moved to Thailand when Dar was two years old to search better care for Dar’s injured legs. Dar’s mother was working in a plant that produces charcoals. One day, when Dar was playing around her mother’s workplace, she slipped on the floor, fell, and got severe burn wounds. The hospital nearby had no facilities to treat her, so her parents crossed the border to Thailand with hope of finding treatment for Dar at Mae Tao Clinic. Unfortunately, MTC could not provide treatment as Dar’s condition was critical and needed advanced-level care. Dar was sent to Mae Sot General Hospital but unfortunately, they were not in the position to provide appropriate care either. Hence, Dar was referred again, this time to a hospital in Chiang Mai that has a specialized burn unit. Regardless of the medical treatment in Chiang Mai, her legs never fully cured and Dar still has scars and some minor disabilities. After Dar’s treatment, her family decided to stay.
Dar got married at the age of seventeen. She and her husband used contraception because they wanted some time to prepare before becoming parents. Nevertheless, Dar started experiencing pregnancy symptoms such as dizziness and nausea. She visited Mae Tao Clinic to check whether she was pregnant and the test confirmed her pregnancy. With this knowledge, she came for regular antenatal care visits following the health workers’ recommendations. Her pregnancy was not easy for her, as she suffered from related complaints including leg pain and contractions. At times she felt weak and weary, and sometimes she tripped of slipped. In the seventh month of her pregnancy, she felt regular contractions. She came to Mae Tao Clinic and her baby was born prematurely. Her daughter was admitted into the Reproductive Health Inpatient Department to be monitored intensively. She has been gaining weight and getting healthier.
“I hope my daughter will be educated so that she becomes a teacher one day. I’d like to have two more children but want to have some gap: I plan to have a second child when the first one goes to the kindergarten,”
said Dar.
“Although we are from Burma we are not recognized as Burmese citizens. So we do not have any plan to go back to Burma in the future. Without Mae Tao Clinic, we would have had more hardships as we cannot afford medical bills elsewhere. So I want to thank all Mae Tao Clinic staff and its donors.”
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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