When child mortality rates take on flesh and skin...

Back in November, those of us staying in the village experienced what felt like a miracle. On vaccination day, a mother with an eight day old baby showed up at the clinic. The baby weighed only 1.2 kg and looked like a skeleton. The mother reported he had been born tiny (possibly a few weeks premature but not much) and was refusing milk. Thankfully, at that time, a Norwegian midwife was with us, and while the rest of us could at best make recommendations (a doctor present even nervously considered the pros and cons of putting a feeding tube into this small baby), Liv provided concrete help to the mother, working with her on how to extract her milk and put it into the very weak baby, who simply was not strong enough to latch onto the breasts.

Two weeks later, the baby was still alive. Still small, still weak, but alive and struggling to live. The mom appeared tired, but she did nothing else in the day but attend to this child, and the baby lived.

Then the baby made it to the one month mark, which is important in Shan culture, because he received a name: Tsam Hurng. He was a live, and he had put on another 100 grams, and he weighed 1.6 kg, still far too small, but he was making it.

Then in February, I went to visit the mom and baby again and was amazed by what I saw: a healthy, thriving little boy with an extraordinarily devoted mother. I sent these photos to Liv, the Norwegian midwife, and felt so proud to have witnessed something so good and extraordinary happen. I thanked God.

Then yesterday I received a phone call from my Shan brother (I'm in Chiang Mai right now, waiting on a work permit). Tsam Hurng had caught chickenpox and died.

Everyone had worked so hard to watch this child live and grow to be a man. His mother had devoted herself to him, and he had seemingly come out of the woods and was okay.

But he died. From chickenpox.

I feel angry at the injustice. Children living on the Thai-Burma border have terrible mortality rates. Unfortunately, I cannot find an online source for the actual mortality rate, but I've seen in print anywhere between 1/3 and 2/5 children die before their fifth birth.

As I share the joy with many Shan friends of mine who are about to have babies or just had theirs, I feel the shadow of the mortality rates. I suspect they're a little better in the village where I live, because we do have a clinic with a mother-baby department that works tirelessly to combat many common causes of death in children. Still, Tsam Hurng reminds me of how far from perfect the situation is.

Please pray for and remember Tsam Hurng's family, and do not forget Burma. Do not think for one moment the struggle for the ethnic regions is over. Some things are improving, but the work is just beginning. And some places, like Kachin State, still wait to see any improvement from the government changes.