Founder Of Bumi Sehat Foundation.
A visit to the clinic and later having lunch with Ibu Robin at her home nearby,
made for a wonderfully, pleasant day for me.
She is an American midwife, the founder of Bumi Sehat Foundation offering free
medical care for Balinese pregnant women and their children, free deliveries with
trained midwives, and general care families. Working for the clinic, there are up to
9 midwives, 10 delivery beds and occasional volunteers that are western healthcare
professionals.
Today when I called Ibu Robin at mid morning, she invited me to hurry for the delivery
that was about to happen.. Although I rushed to the clinic as quickly as I could, it was
a false alarm for me, as the woman was not going to deliver until much later.
Back in 2004, when I called Ibu Robin, I was greatly honored to assist her with the
delivery of 2 babies at her clinic. Because for me, it was so fascinating, I will include
it in my next post.
Later in 2011, Ibu Robin was honored the CNN Hero Award Of The Year, receiving
world recognition and much needed money for the clinic.
For today's visit, I brought her a bag of donations, including baby toys, cotton baby
blankets, children's vitamins, baby hair combs/brushes, and little animal plastic
containers with lids and a little chocolate for Ibu Robin.
It was fun for me to collect these items before I left on my trip to Bali.
In the past, I tried to bring a suitcase of donated medicines from the states, but they
were unfortunately confiscated at the Denpasar airport customs.
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| Ibu Robin is giving a lecture to a group of doulas while I demonstrate a baby doll that has an attached umbilical cord and placenta. (the placenta is hiding) When I arrived today, Ibu Robin was lecturing a group of young midwives and doulas from the United States, sharing about her missions and interesting experiences of starting up new disaster clinics and of training midwives. It included her experiences in Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia after the earthquake/tsunami 2004, setting up the first midwife clinic in Haiti after the earthquake / choleraepidemic 2010 and most recently in the Philippines after the earthquake and typhoon 2013.
Ibu Robin may leave the umbilical cord and placenta attached for several hours to benefit the newborn with extra oxygen, improved immunity and continued bonding. "Lotus birth" is the practice of leaving the umbilical cord uncut after childbirth so that the baby is left attached to the placenta until the cord naturally separates at the umbilicus, usually a few days after birth. This is rare in western culture.
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1. How does her family in Bali cope with her being gone so much of the time? She has 8
children (now grown up) and one newly adopted Balinese child. She said they cope well,
support her work, live within a short bicycle distance from the clinic so they can have lunch
together. At times, her husband and children have joined her on international trips to help
her on various missions.
2. Has she had ever gotten sick during her times away? She said "yes". Once, she had to be helicoptered out of the Philippines with serious smoke inhalation respiratory problems.
But she didn't really want to elaborate on her own issues and instead continued to focus on
the health problems during disasters around the world.
Going Home - A Little Bit Of Bliss
At the end of my visit, her clinic staff guy gave me a motorbike ride back to my homestay,
which meant a ride weaving on paths through the Monkey Forest, which was a magically,
surreal ride! For me, it was like taking an exciting Disneyland ride, feeling completely free
and safe, while whizzing past stone temples and hundreds of monkeys (Balinese hanuman
gods) playing along side of the trails. I hung on steadily and grinned at them with delight,
knowing this time, they couldn't jump on me or steal my goodies.
All the while, I was impregnated with feelings of bliss.
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| And a glow of fertility |
Robin Lim Support
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