Team Swangelista is Expanding!

So, big news! I am pregnant, and the newest addition to Team Swangelista is expected in late January 2013. We just found out this morning that we are having a girl! I had been convinced we were having another boy so that makes me 0 for 2 in terms of predictions (I was also convinced Luke would be a girl). Marcus was really hoping for a girl and is thrilled. Happy days!!! :-)

Luke with his baby sister (in utero). He likes using the belly as a pillow but baby girl's growing 

and we feel her kicks more now so this won't be comfortable for Luke for much longer. 21 weeks and counting!

ROH Feature in the Philippine Star

Roots of Health got a feature article in the August 17th Philippine Star!

In Puerto Princesa, reproductive health from the ground up BENT ANTENNA By Audrey N. Carpio (The Philippine Star) Updated August 17, 2012 12:00 AM Comments (0)

The birds and bees: Fifth grade students learning about the reproductive system

| Zoom

The RH storm has temporarily abated, but expect it to intensify again in the coming weeks or months. The bill’s long struggle to get passed into law may or may not end this year, and we will go through another dramatic round of debates, rallying, prayers and political pressure all over again. But let’s put that aside for now and see how others have addressed the immediate problems of maternal death, unwanted pregnancy and general dearth of sex education among poor women, in spite of the lack of help, and even outright obstruction, from the government. Like what we’ve learned from our weather-related tragedies, we can’t always rely on official institutions to solve our problems, especially when they’re often the cause of them. We rely on our own.

Roots of Health is a nonprofit organization based in Puerto Princesa, Palawan that provides education and reproductive health services to the women and girls of the community. Run by a balikbayan, Ami Evangelista, and her South African husband Marcus Swanepoel, the group teaches high school and college students lessons on topics that range from self-esteem to sexually transmitted diseases. They were in Manila, incidentally right before the vote to end the debates in Congress, to introduce Roots of Health and share what they’ve been doing down in Palawan. Ami, who is pregnant with their second child, sat down with the Philippine STAR and talked about sex… education.

YSTYLE: What kind of education does Roots of Health provide?

AMI EVANGELISTA: We have two very distinct forms of education, the type we give to women in the communities, and the schools. For the women, it has to adult learner-focused, assuming there’s not a great deal of knowledge already. Our clients finish only up to second or third grade, so it’s not too data-focused. We try to make it fun and engaging, not overwhelming.

In the schools, we have to account for what is age appropriate: what can we say to 13 and 14 year olds vs. 17 and 18 year olds, keeping a positive message. If you just say sex is bad, they’re not going to talk to you. We keep it positive, still trying to impart that they have to think carefully before they act and focus on what they their goals and dreams are. 

Do you find that high school is a little late to begin sex ed?

Actually it can be. Last year we were invited to teach with Grades 5 and 6. Because of age-appropriateness, we focused not on sex but on puberty and what it means. When ROH began we started with fourth-year students, but that was when a lot of the pregnancies happen. So now we really want to work across the board as quickly as possible, try to get the first and second year students before they’ve actually initiated first sex so that at least if and when they do have sex, they’re doing it safely.

Do you distribute contraception?

In our community sites we give them for free, to anybody who asks. We do not distribute contraceptives at schools. Some schools specifically said it was not allowed and some haven’t, but we just decided not to because it would cause too much friction. I can understand how parents would be upset if their 14 year old is coming home with condoms or birth control. In high school we teach the basic info and tell them if they want to avail of our health services to come to our office. If they come to our office, it’s off-campus, they come of their own volition and can have confidential conversations with our nurses and midwives, figure out what their situation is, and if they want to use contraceptives, figure out what kind is the best for them.

Are they still embarrassed to seek your help?

High schoolers tend not to come, and it’s really hard to change behaviors. Of course it’s terribly depressing when you teach a group of students and find out a few months later one of them is pregnant. But I think it’s too much trouble for them and they’re embarrassed; we have yet to figure out a way to get around that. It’s tricky with kids, if they trust us we don’t want to betray that trust; at the same time they are minors. College kids who are of age, a lot of them do come to our office and ask us for contraception so we’re very happy to help them.

How do you measure effectiveness?

That’s actually one of the things that are really hard to measure. How do you measure a pregnancy that didn’t happen? It’s especially hard in Palawan because there aren’t a lot of data on things like this, even census data. Even schools where so many girls drop out, most of the schools don’t list the reason why, or even if they have dropped out. So it’s difficult to measure the unplanned pregnancy. We pick data that we can measure, one of the things is drop out rates. Of course, there will be other reasons for dropping out, but over the years we can see in the schools we work in, if the drop out rates have shifted a little bit, we can’t say its all us, but we can say some of that is due to the education we’re giving.

We track attendance. We have a cell phone hotline, so we track what kinds of questions they have and what kind of information they’re looking for. We have a lot of anecdotal data, of just students telling us what a difference it’s made to them to have a reliable and trusted source, where before they had to rely on their friends. A lot of people rely on porn for their sex ed, because they’re not getting it from parents or school.

A woman for others: Ami Evangelista Swanepoel, co-founder and executive director of Roots of Health

How do the men of the community fit into this?

When we started working in the community sites, the men were a little suspicious of us at first. We specifically target the most underserved communities. For one thing they’re not very used to having someone come in and offer services. They were probably afraid we were going to tell the women to stop having sex with them. Over the weeks and months, they saw that we were really focusing on the health of their wives. And we have a lot of outreach programs for kids, so they could see that their whole family is benefiting from the programming of this organization. They’ve become friendlier, and help us set up our equipment and materials. Every so often we have special events that include the men. Some of the men, unfortunately, are out of work and disempowered and spend most of the day drunk, so they’re not necessarily unsupportive but just panggulo.

What do you do if someone comes seeking an abortion?

We comply fully with Philippine law: we don’t support it, we don’t counsel it, we don’t assist in any way. Whenever someone questions me about our work, “Oh, you’re pro-RH, does that mean you’re for abortion?” I always say we’re totally against it, but what we try to do is to help prevent an unplanned pregnancy from happening in the first place, minimizing the need for abortion. We believe in educating women and girls about their bodies and how pregnancy happens, so they don’t have to face that situation. If somebody did come to us and tell us she was pregnant, we would try to give her the best prenatal care she can have.

What are your thoughts on the RH Bill?

We’re doing our work because the government isn’t providing the basic services that Filipinos deserve, and until they do, we’re just going to keep doing it. With the RH bill and policy debates, it’s all so politicized, but really, on the ground it doesn’t come into things at all. Most of our clients are so poor and live hand to mouth, they don’t watch politics, don’t follow debates, they’re just trying to figure out where they’re getting their next meal. Of course we support the bill. Any non-profit, your absolute success would be if you can shut down and nobody needs your help anymore. I would love for the day to come when I can say, “I’m gonna shut down Roots of Health because there are no more health problems anymore among women in the Philippines.” If the RH bill were to pass, we would be in a really good position to help government workers with how to deliver the services. We’ve been very collaborative with the LGUs who recognize we are a big help, since they’re so understaffed and overworked, like one barangay health worker caring for 12,000 households. If the bill passes, we will keep partnering with them until they’re fully ready to be providing these services.

* * *

Help keep Roots of Health sustainable. Find out more at rootsofhealth.org.

TO view the article: 

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=838723&publicationSubCategoryId=451

I Was Here

I love this song and video by Beyonce.
So inspiring.
We are all here. Lets leave our marks - no matter how small - and touch someone's life.
Make a difference. 
Be Here.

As the video asks at the end, "What will you do?"

http://whd-iwashere.org/

Breastfeeding Bloopers

In honor of August being breastfeeding awareness month, Jenny at Chronicles of a Nursing Mom is teaming up with Rone of Mothering Earthlings to showcase their readers' breastfeeding bloopers. Some of these stories are really funny - check them out!

I breastfed Luke until he was 14 months old, and while I didn't always love the experience, I am glad I managed to do it for that long. I have many embarrassing stories of breastfeeding bloopers but through I'd share the one I entered for this contest:

You know that screaming, inconsolable baby on the flight who just will not stop crying? Well, that was my son Luke when he was about 4 months old, on a flight from Manila to Palawan. We were sitting on the runway in Manila waiting for our turn to take off and he just would not stop screaming. I always breastfed him at take off and landing when we flew to help prevent pain in his ears from the pressure changes and on this flight I was *really* trying to get him to breastfeed so he would stop crying. I forced him on to my boob and he nursed for about 10 seconds – just long enough to get milk flowing – then decided he’d rather be crying his head off instead and resumed the screaming. So there we were. Screaming baby. All the passengers infront of us and around us staring with very irritated expressions. And me, boob exposed, milk spurting from said exposed boob, frantically trying to get my baby to latch on. Not so fun!

To keep on with breastfeeding month, here is a photo of me breastfeeding Luke at Coco Loco, one of the resorts here in Palawan we like going to.

What are some of your breastfeeding bloopers? :)

Feature in Women's Health

Before the month ends, wanted to share a feature on me / Roots of Health in the July issue of Women's Health magazine. 

The fabulous Anne Acampado interviewed me and I am so happy with this article that she wrote. Text below. Thanks Anne and Women's Health!

Women’s Health Magazine interviewed Ami Evangelista Swanepoel regarding her reproductive health NGO, Roots of Health.

“I’ll never forget meeting women who said they only wanted two or three children, but had gone through seven or eight pregnancies,” says Amina Evangelista Swanepoel, founder of reproductive health rights advocacy Roots of Health in Palawan.

“When I asked why they had more children than they wanted, women said they didn’t know how to prevent pregnancy, or that their partners forced them to have more kids, or that they wanted to use contraception but could not afford it,” she adds.

ADDRESSING A NEED
This is just one of the everyday realities that Swanepoel faces. Swanepoel, a Filipino-American who grew up in Manila and moved to the U.S. to study at 19, returned after her mother suggested starting a non-profit organization for women and children in Palawan. The organization works with poor communities in Puerto Princesa to educate and empower women and girls about their reproductive health rights and what they can do to protect their children. “It became very clear that levels of reproductive health knowledge are very low. Some of the women in our community report that people drink laundry detergent, or hand soap to cure sexually transmitted infections,” she says. “May mga babae din kasi na talagang hindi nila alam paano nabubuntis ang babae. Or hindi nila alam na may paraan para maplano kung ilan ang anak nila at kung ano ang dapat gawin para healthy ang pagbubuntis nila,” she adds.

A POSITIVE IMPACT
Fast forward three years later and she, along with 12 fulltime staff of nurses, midwives, and health care LS Conversations With edit 4.indd 79 providers—have become a vital part of the communities they’re involved in.

Their help extends to prenatal and post-natal care. She shares an experience of one of their nurses, Daisy Elorquez. “When she arrived to deliver a baby in one of our communities, she found a manghihilot (traditional healer) pushing on the pregnant woman’s stomach to try to force baby out. She stopped her and performed an internal exam and discovered that the placenta was obstructing the cervix. This was preventing the baby from being able to exit the uterus. It’s a situation which can result in the baby’s or mother’s death—sometimes both. She convinced the woman and husband that the situation was serious and rushed the woman to a local hospital where she gave birth to a healthy baby boy,” says Swanepoel.

The work is hard and never ending, but Swanepoel knows Roots of Health is on the right track. “It’s heartbreaking to see how these women struggle to care for their huge families and to see that many of their children are hungry and sickly. Their struggles reinforce for me the importance of what we’re doing—giving women education, and access to health services, to give them a chance to have the healthy families they deserve,” she says.

Roots of Health hopes to expand the education programs they provide and work with more colleges and schools in Palawan. A program for the men in the community is also in the pipeline. “Kasi madalas kapag hindi pumapayag at sinusuportahan ng mga asawang lalaki yung efforts na magplano ng pamilya, hindi maituloy yung nasimulan. Kailangan full support at commitment ng nanay at tatay,” says Swanepoel.

HOPE IN THE RH BILL
She has no doubt that passing the Reproductive Health bill into law will benefit the women of the communities they serve. (See “Your Rights, Right Now,” page 48) “In one of our sites, there is one government midwife that serves over 10,000 families. But she can only see the pregnant clients for two afternoons a month. The city provides free contraceptives, but the yearly supply runs out by March.

Right now, Roots of Health is providing services that the government should be guaranteeing all of its citizens. Because the funding for health services, including free contraceptives for those who want to use them, will be enshrined and protected by a reproductive health rights law, women and girls will not have to worry.” The roots of health have been laid, and Swanepoel is making sure the roots flourish into better health for women and a secure future for Filipinas.

— Anne Acampado

Share Cookie, Maybe??

I love to carry Luke in my arms and dance and sing around the house with him. He seems to enjoy it though oftentimes is squirmy and makes me put him down. (Could I be embarrassing him already?? Haha).

I keep encouraging Luke to dance but for the most part, he just watches me dancing with a somewhat bewildered look on his face. But this morning, I played this cookie monter spoof of "Call Me, Maybe" for him, and he danced! He was grinning and pumping his arms and bobbing up and down. It was so ridiculously cute, and I'm so happy he's started dancing! :) Check out the video below: 

Help me feed my toddler!

Luke has always been a pretty good eater but in the last few days feeding him has become a nightmare. 


Firstly, he now refuses to sit in his highchair. When we try to sit him in it he starts kicking and screaming and flailing his arms around and if we don't immediately abort the attempt to strap him in, he gets insanely worked up and starts breathing funny and gets really angry and red in the face. He kind of looks like he should have smoke coming out of his nose. It's kind of funny but distressing at the same time. The moment we stop trying to get him in the chair, he is 100% fine. Even giggly. It is annoying for me to see him go from insanely upset to perfectly happy in 1 second flat - just as soon as he gets his way.


We don't really need to get him in the highchair, but when we can't and have to feed him on the go, or while he's sitting on someone's lap, he gets so squirmy and food pretty much gets everywhere but in his mouth.


But this was all fine when he was actually eating. These days he just doesn't seem to want to eat anything we prepare for him. He used to love his baby food - oftentimes a mix of cerelac or rice or potatoes with Plum organics red lentils or beef stew or turkey baby food. He also used to really like yogurt, and oatmeal, and mangoes and a mixture of apples and pears. But now all of a sudden he is refusing to eat it all. If it is soft and mushy, he doesn't want it. 


Yesterday after refusing food for nearly 24 hours, we were out at Neva's for lunch and he proceeded to eat from my plate -- he had chicken cordon bleu, mashed potatoes, and the better part of a third of a slice of pizza. I was so happy he was eating though he disproved my theory that maybe he was teething and just didn't want anything in his mouth.


So today I resolved to make him food that is more like grown up food. I cooked up some ground beef with pieces of potato, and once cooked I left the food as it was and didn't blend or puree it. I was excited to feed him dinner cause I thought he'd like it. One bite and then he refused anymore. If we managed to trick him and get spoon-fulls in his mouth on the sly, he'd promptly spit it all out. Then he was willing to take bites if he could feed himself, but again, as soon as the food was in his mouth, he spat it out. I tasted the mixture and it tasted good. I don't understand why he won't eat it. I thought it might be too bland, so I mixed some (not-spicy) chicken tikka masala sauce from our dinner in with his, and he again took one bite but refused any more. 


So... what to do? Marcus isn't too worried. He figures Luke will eat when he's hungry enough. Which may be true. But I would like to have more ideas for food to make him if he is really actually done with baby food. 


He seems to like cheese, so I thought I could cook a bit of pasta and grate some cheese on top. Maybe try this ground beef mixture again with carrots or cheese mixed in. He loved spaghetti a few weeks ago, so I'll try that again. But what else can I try? I get overwhelmed when I google toddler recipes because so much comes up, and a lot of the meals seem so complicated, or need ingredients I can't get in Palawan.


Please share your favorite things to make for your babies/toddlers/kids! The simpler the better ;-) (Please feel free to email me or direct message on FB or twitter if you'd rather not post here). Appreciate any and all suggestions! Thanks!


PS - I should add that I haven't started just feeding him whatever we're eating because Marcus and I don't prepare our meals, and a few months ago when I started giving Luke whatever food we were eating, he got amoebiasis, twice. Marcus and I didn't get infected so it may have been something else, though the cook later turned out positive for the same parasite. She's since been treated and none of us have been sick, but for now I'd prefer to keep prepping Luke's food myself...