Dorothy Oluoch: Roles and perceptions of mothers of hospitalized sick newborns

My name is Dorothy Oluoch, I have a basic undergraduate degree in anthropology and a masters degree in medical anthropology.

My current research is looking at the experiences of mothers with sick newborns in Nairobi City County, basically documenting their stories, their challenges, and some of the things that they go through on a day to day basis when the children or neonates are admitted to hospitals in Nairobi. It’s a qualitative study and we employ different methodologies. I conduct nine participant observations within the newborn units; I conduct in-depth interviews when they are being discharged and also do home follow-up visits to their homes about two to three weeks after they’re discharged.

This is important because not so much has been published in relation to experiences with mothers who have premature babies. A lot of the published work is from high-income countries, and therefore this work is filling in that gap. Because I’m using different methodologies, I think it’s also having a major impact in methodologies and how these experiences can be collected, particularly in low and middle income settings.

The ultimate contribution of this work would be to policy, in terms of training of health workers because some of the things that the mothers go through are linked to relationships within the newborn units, how nurses communicate with the mothers. For the nurses to actually get to hear the stories of the mothers might be input to change things that might not cost much and might be cost effective. The second thing is the place upon the networks that this mothers developed over time, during the time of admission and even post-discharge can be a learning point and a key resource for some of the mothers with premature or sick babies.

This interview was recorded in December 2017