Nurse who cries and rejoices with the babies

Mary Mathenge, a nurse at the neonatal ICU at Aga Khan University Hospital, exudes confidence while at her workstation.

There is a hint of tranquillity along the corridor and inside the neonatal intensive care unit. An infant lies in an incubator as the two nurses present regularly attend to it.

Taking care of newborns is something Mary Mathenge, one of the nurses at the neonatal ICU at Aga Khan University Hospital, holds dear to her heart. She says she is more comfortable in the company of babies than adults.

“This is where babies are helped to relieve stress,” says Mrs Mathenge, clad in a green surgeon’s outfit.

For the past 20 years, she has cried and rejoiced with babies – and mothers as well.

The Aga Khan University Hospital is one of the two infirmaries in Africa which have neonatal ICU. Not much has been heard about such facility but Mrs Mathenge, led Lifestyle into having an inside feel.

Though she occasionally goes to the theatre to assist in delivery, most of the time she would be receiving babies after delivery and taking care of them. She has lost count of the number of babies who have gone though her hands but roughly puts the figure at 48,000.

Always happy

“Babies are the best you can deal with. I have that compassion and I am always happy at the end of the day that I have made a baby comfortable. I don’t do this just as a job and go home. I have an attachment to babies,” says Mrs Mathenge.

Babies too, she says, can get stress even on the first day and it is important to take good care of them.

And when you find her in the ICU room – even without any other nurse around – she would be talking to the baby as if she were speaking to an adult. From birth, she says, you are supposed to talk to the baby.

“When a baby is crying, it is just because of discomfort. You have to touch it. Babies get a lot of stress,” she says. “When you hold them, just touch them on the forehead. It helps in releasing anti-stress hormones and, when it is produced, they relax,” says Mrs Mathenge, adding that babies too respond to their names.

For babies who have not yet been named, she calls them by their mother’s names.

Start talking

When babies are small, she says, one must start talking to them because they learn to associate sounds. Even during pregnancy, mothers are encouraged to talk to their unborn babies by regularly touching the tummies.

As a young girl, Mathenge hardly contemplated working anywhere near a maternity ward.