Isn't there anybody out there from Azerbaijan? My daughter is here visiting
from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, with her husband and two children.
She has a master's degree but has elected not to work out of the home while
her children are young. However, while they are in school, she volunteers
at the baby orphanage. The resources are nil. Diapers are some rags tied
around the little bodies and changed once or twice a day. With no diaper
wipes, the babies are hung under a tap for washing. (We have made and
donated several hundred cloth diapers with velcro closures and waterproof
exteriors)
Adoption within this country is NEVER done. In fact, a friend of my
daughter's who is desperate for a child, is wearing a pillow under a large
dress in order for everybody to think she is having a baby. She will then
go to the hospital to "have a baby," and come home with the adopted one.
Adoption is frowned upon within the country, and adoptions are not allowed
outside the country yet. There is no foster program - so: the alternative is
18 years in an orphanage.
Where is all this leading?
Donate milk to the orphanage? Not a chance! It simply is NEVER done in
this culture, and would be a tough thing to change at this point. Should
we let the children die because breast milk is better? Personally, I don't
think so.
The point of this long harangue is this:
Those babies are barely surviving. They are fed tea or a mush mixed with
something yellow. Occasionally, the international women's group (mostly
expatriots from the U.S. and Britain) are able to get hold of high quality
formula for use with these babies. It is extremely difficult to get, due to
the international agreements not to pass out free formula in third world
countries - a good idea for most, but not all babies.
My daughter says that without free western formula, which they can't get,
orphanage workers simply bring bottles of some sort of stuff around for the
babies. Bottles are propped in the babies' mouths and gathered up some time
later. If a bottle falls out or on the floor, too bad. One very small baby
has been losing weight. Brooke picked her up, located a precious bottle of
donated ABM, and held her while she wolfed down several ounces. Too bad
they can't get enough more to feed her really nutritional food, instead of
tea and mush.
After two previous summers volunteering with her husband in a Russian
orphanage, I think my daughter is pretty qualified to say that breast milk
is simply not available for ALL babies around the world. The substitutes
they are using are extremely poor quality. If there were only some way to
send that baby orphanage all the free formula our hospital passes out to
breast feeding mothers.
Deanne
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