Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - Regional Children's Hospital

Our morning was spent in the baby ward with the babies and their mothers. This was not the same room we saw the last year we were there. Last year, we were in the orphan NICU ward, but we didn't see that this time. It was very fun to be able to work with the mothers of the babies.

The first room we entered had 2 babies. One baby was born at 36 weeks and had an NG tube. We were surprised to see this, as we didn't see NG tubes at all last time. The other baby was feeding from a bottle, but was very little.

This was the baby with the NG tube.


Kym demonstrated swaddling. In Ukraine, they wrap them up very tightly with their arms down at their sides. We talked about swaddling with arms up so the babies can have their hands at their faces and mouths for self-soothing.


Kym also showed how to position babies with the Bendy Bumpers, which we purchased for the hospital with funds donated by YOU. This is YOUR money at work!

Sweet, sweet baby, all cuddled and resting so calmly.

See how tightly this little one is wrapped?

Kym and Christie re-swaddled the baby and are putting her in a SnuggleUp.

Resting calmly again.

The staff in the baby room were not doing oral stim during NG feedings. So, Amy talked about the importance of this procedure to encourage the baby to associate oral stim with getting full from feedings. Amy also explained the importance of using pacifiers for oral stim and to help with reflux after feedings. We left lots of pacifiers with the hospital staff.

This little one is an orpan with spinal meningitis. CNS damage from the meningitis had caused excess tone.

Just SO cute!! I could snuggle this little one up forever!

A picture of the baby ward hallway.

This is the stairwell in the hospital. That's me at the bottom, getting ready to carry that bag up the stairs. The men with us never want us to carry our own baggage. It's very nice!

A good shot of the stairwell.

This little baby had an issue with one of his/her legs. It was a small room, and that was their only concern, so us "speechies" didn't even enter the room.

Olga taking a much-needed break from translating. Poor, poor girl! We exhaust her!

Abby's digging around in the luggage for more baby items.

The doctors and nurses all wanted to listen to us.

After spending time in the baby ward, they took us to the room where we set up our "clinic". We had speech, OT, and PT stations for the children to rotate through. We were able to assess 26 kids because we started a couple of hours earlier than we were scheduled to start. Even though we started earlier, families were lined up to see us. We saw kids with CP, SMA, muscular dystrophy, what they call "speech retardation", and more. We had assessment forms for each child with places for speech, OT, and PT to comment. These were used later that night to develop packets individualized to each child with charts and handouts for recommended therapy techniques. Many parents said their children didn't need speech-language help, but we at least gave them developmental charts and handouts for how to encourage and guide speech-language growth and development at home.

I feel like speech-language is an area that's not as high a concern in Ukraine as it is here. Here, we want our children to be able to communicate with us any way they can. There, the way they look physically seems to be of more importance than communication. Not to say that any of our disciplines are more important than the others..... Just that maybe speech-language delays or disorders are more often overlooked there than physical disabilities. Or maybe they feel that with the language barrier, we can't help them. It's important to get across that development is the same across languages and that alternative methods to speech are available.

This little guy was so happy the whole time he was there. He was excited to see us!

This shows the room in which we worked.

This same little guy was so excited to get into a walker!

They immediately worked on crawling up to the walker, pulling to stand, and turning around.

Kati and Abby worked on some fine motor tasks with him.

A very happy parent!

Collaboration. The man in the white labcoat is an American doctor who is living in Kiev. He met up with us and was a great asset to the team. We appreciated Doctor Jim's assistance!

Sweet face!

The sweet faces just keep on coming!

In addition to providing her input in all discplines, Amanda helped entertain children as they waited their turn to rotate through the stations. Amanda has learned so much about each discipline through the years, that she might as well be grandfathered in as an OT, PT, and speech therapist. Ha!

Darling little girl!

This young man was excited to have new shoes and be in a walker.

He's checking it out.

Abby's assessing this young man's fine motor skills.


She had him copy her name in Russian from her name tag. Ha! Abby designed a Russian handwriting program for this guy later that night. When we asked Olga about translating it, we told her it "wouldn't be much". She responded, "I know what your 'not much' means." Hahahaha!!! I can't even begin to describe how much documentation she translates for us before the trip. It seems that the papers are never-ending! Poor Olga!

When this young lady came in, Amy and I began asking her father some questions. The girl was watching and listening and then began speaking to us in ENGLISH!!! She said, "My name is..." and continued on speaking in our language. How funny is that??

Boy was this young man excited to get up on his feet in a walker!!

Showing off her new shoes, courtesy of YOUR donations!

This little one could NOT be consoled. Poor guy must've been terrified of what was going on. Vova tried to console him, and it worked for a very short while, but then he began crying again. As Vova walked back to sit down, he said, "It is not possible." Hahaha! Amy then tried to console the kiddo by tossing up a big therapy ball, and it also worked for a few short seconds. Then he went back to crying again.

Christie and Kym casted several kids for braces that we then shipped to the families when we got home.

Vova: "It is not possible."

The group outside of the hospital. What a long, yet productive and exciting, day!

When we got back to the hotel, Christie and Kati worked on covering the foam wedges we brought with vinyl. Christie kept accidentally spraying the adhesive on Kati, and it was a sticky mess! What fun we had with the little things!

This was the night we ate at Premiere's. It's a neat restaurant right around the corner from our hotel. Amy and I, and Kym and Christie, were trying to explain to Vova (who was ordering for us) that we wanted to split our meals in half. Instead of "half" or "split", he said, "It is medium?" I know it doesn't sound that funny, but it was hilarious at the time. I love the language differences. They never use contractions, so when we're talking with them, we end up talking LIKE them. Then we continue saying things without contractions when we get back home. It's hard to adjust back and forth. Ha!

That night was again spent making packets for each individual child we assessed and getting ready for the next day. The trip was full of work, work, work, but it was the best fun ever!