Oh Baby! Taking a Look at The Big Picture

These past few days I have been thinking about the many things still left for me to do before my due date in early October.

At the same time, I have been in contact with several family members in Venezuela that have been keeping me up to date with the very different circumstances faced by new mothers and women with small children in Venezuela.

Before I go into detail on the negative aspects, I do have to say that Venezuela's labor laws are much more favorable towards expecting mothers than most countries. By law:

• Venezuelan women can get up to six months of PAID maternity leave. 
• They can choose to take the leave as early on or as late as they please.
• Women who have rollover vacation and sick days can also combine these days and get up to one year of paid leave. Combining maternity leave and vacation leave has become very common as it is quite difficult to find child care for an infant younger than 12 months old. 
• Most employers also need to provide their employees with a stipend for childcare until the child is four years old.

These benefits sound quite wonderful right about now. I mean, who wouldn't want to get a salary for staying home from work for a year to raise their child? But these perks come with a high price. The three main problems with this approach are:

1. Many companies are unwilling to hire young women for fear that they will get pregnant and then the company will have to pay them a full salary for endless months. 
2. Some of these companies will have to hire a temporary worker and incur additional costs. 
3. Other companies will just have to make the best with less people and as a result the productivity of the company will suffer.

The Shortage Problem

Alas, these advantages have not been enough to encourage women of childbearing years to have more children. The facts is that maternity leave benefits do not make up for the terrifying food and medicine shortages in the country. Diapers (disposable as well as cloth), baby formula, wipes, and any other baby products you can think of, have become virtually impossible to find.

Pregnant women and those with small children are becoming increasingly desperate to find these products. Nursing mothers need to wake up very early and stand on long lines for up to ten hours in hopes of finding the products they need. Most days, they stand on these lines in vain as the products are never in stock or they are quickly snatched by the people in the front of the line.


The Healthcare Problem

It is not just baby products that these women are in search for, medicine and medical supplies are also well sought out. The truth is that if you do not have the money to give birth at a private clinic, you will have to bring your own gloves, gauze, and catheters as chances are that hospitals will not have enough. These items are hard to come by and even if you do find them, many times you will get turned away by overcrowded public hospitals that are lacking surgical supplies and doctors. Many of these hospitals do not have proper ventilation (due to shortages on air conditioning parts) which makes these hospitals a breeding ground for bacteria and infections. Moreover, insufficient lighting and lack of security have caused robberies of babies and personal belongings to become common in maternity wards.

Many doctors (as well as other health professionals) have fled the country due to the economic crisis. Because of this, most hospitals are short on staff. The idea is to get you in and out of the hospital as soon as possible. This attitude is in part responsible for the growing cesarean sections performed in the country. It is a no-brainer, a surgery is much quicker and more expensive than having to attend to a woman for 12 to 16 hours of labor. Most women, and especially those of a lower socioeconomic status, are coerced by doctors to get a C-section. Lack of education and minimal options leave women with no choice.

The ugly truth of public hospitals in Venezuela has been well documented by Betty Laura Zapata, a Venezuelan photojournalist who lives in London. In 2014, she visited some of the public hospitals in the country and interviewed doctors, nurses, and supporting staff in hopes of getting a clearer picture of what is going on in the country. You could see some pictures on Betty's research at Project X-Ray. I should warn you that some of the images are graphic. She also put together a written report on her findings which you can read in the following link: Betty Zapata's report on Venezuelan hospitals. In addition, I am also including a video which aired on Channel 4 News last week.

The Birth Control Problem

Unwanted pregnancies (which are pretty much all pregnancies given the current economic crisis) are becoming more common these days. The reason for this is that the country has virtually run out of all forms of contraceptives. Women are going from pharmacy to pharmacy furiously looking for birth control pills. A recent article in Bloomberg Business, The Latest Indignity in Venezuela, reports that due to inflation rates and shortages, a pack of condoms (if you are lucky enough to find them) can cost upwards of 4,760 bolivares which represents the monthly salary of a worker making minimum wage or $755.

This has also caused teenage pregnancies to spiral out of control with Venezuela becoming the South American country with the second highest teenage pregnancy rate. Women are exploring the possibilities of obtaining long term contraceptive methods such as intrauterine devices which had been used by very few Venezuelan women in the past. However, due to the lack of available information on these methods, many working class women feel apprehensive about exploring this option. In addition, intrauterine devices will do little to address the high rate of HIV/AIDS in the country which is currently one of the highest in Latin America. With women growing more frantic each day, it is only a matter of time before women who are not able to get their hands on preventive methods will resort to illegal abortions in order to eliminate the additional stress that may come with feeding an additional mouth. Talk about a slippery slope!

I present these issues with as much data and details as possible in order to show the big picture. It is important to see and to understand all of the unintended consequences that come with failing economic policies and how the same are affecting the people that these same policies vowed to protect—the poor, the needy, women, elderly, children, and all those whose voice is not being heard. I want to continue being that voice. Until next time.