The first time a mother lays eyes on her newborn is a precious moment. To mark the occasion, an OB-GYN from the Dominican Republic joyfully sings as he introduces babies to their mothers.
“Bringing life into this world is a great privilege,” Dr. Luis Manuel de Jesus told The Epoch Times. “[It’s] very fulfilling for me.”
The 46-year-old doctor who works at Centro Médico GRUMED, which belongs to Grupo Médico San Cristóbal, with his wife, Diana Figueroa, also an OB-GYN, loved singing from a young age, eventually joining a church choir.
As his love for music blossomed, Dr. de Jesus was drawn to participate in performances at his school.
“We did the choir, and everyone sang behind me,” he said. “At recess, I composed songs.”
Studying to become a general doctor at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, Dr. de Jesus joined the university choir too.
For a year before he graduated, he was a part of the choir at the Dominican-American Institute—a private English-language institute.
Later, as he went on to study gynecology, obstetrics, and oncology, Dr. de Jesus found himself with no time to attend rehearsals, but his passion for singing didn’t fade.
One day, while introducing a patient to her newborn for the first time, he decided to sing to the pair in his melodious voice.
Soon, his singing began to regularly permeate the maternity ward.
Knowing how incredibly stressful childbirth can be, Dr. de Jesus now frequently goes the extra mile to support his patients by singing during labor to help them feel “relaxed, calm, and happy.”
The songs he sings are sometimes requested by the mothers and other times, they are suggestions he believes will help establish a beautiful connection between the mother and baby.
If a mother is of Christian faith, Dr. de Jesus sings Christian songs to comfort her in the trying moment.
For Dr. de Jesus doing what’s right for his patients stems from his faith. He said: “I feel the Lord [telling me], ‘Look, do this.' And when I do it. ... I am amazed.”
With faith as his anchor, Dr. de Jesus has experienced “miracles,” when faced with challenging situations. For example, in the case of his secretary’s pregnancy.
Sharing her story, he said she was 37 weeks pregnant and had gestational diabetes. Dr. de Jesus had a feeling that she needed to undergo a cesarean section earlier than planned, and when he delivered the baby, he saw why.
The baby had passed meconium inside the uterus.
“It was a very thick meconium ... he had been several days in intrauterine stress,” Dr. de Jesus said. “The baby was in suffering.”
Crediting God for helping him make the right decision, he said that if he had left the baby for another 24 hours in the womb, “the results would have been different,” as the baby would have suffered “intrauterine death, or stillbirth.”
“I practiced with animals if something went wrong,” he said. “If I saw a chicken, for example, [if] it had a bad foot, I made a bandage. If it had a wound, I would look for aspirin. I would grind it; put it on so that it would heal faster.”
From helping ailing animals to creating a safe and comfortable entrance for babies into this world, Dr. de Jesus has come a long way.
