Wanjiru represents thousands of women whose journey to motherhood is not easy. A journey filled with lots of hope, faith, prayer, waiting, crossing fingers, and then, dashed hopes, endless tears, sleepless nights, empty thoughts, endless questions of ‘why’ and ‘why me’, the disappointment sometimes too much to bear. The struggle of women who yearn to birth their own babies.
And for many such women who whose beliefs are grounded in God, it is no secret that their faith wavers as they struggle to understand God, and why he allows some things to happen. That God would be just there,with all his infinite powers and yet deny them the one and only thing they truly yearn for -to bear fruits from their womb. Just one fruit only, is what many plead with God for.
Wanjiru Kihusa has had such moments. She has always been firmly grounded in her faith as a Christian, having served in the Christian Union, taken part in several missions and even spoken behind the pulpit -as a preacher. But lately, she has been finding it difficult to have a conversation with God. She has been struggling with prayer. Since she suffered her first miscarriage, she has been to church countable times. God broke her heart.
Read Wanjiru’s honest confession on her blog ‘A Better You’ about her journey to motherhood and her current struggles with her faith.
Here is the intro to her post.
“I have been nominated thrice for the #7DayBibleChallenge that has been happening on Facebook for a while now. It’s been more than a month since the first time I was nominated. But each time I have been hesitant to participate. Why? Because for over a year now I have been struggling with my faith. But that of course is not something we say in public, right? Read the complete post here …
Ann Wanjiku is mother to a five-month old son. While she was born and raised in Kenya, she now lives in Germany with her husband and child. She moved to Germany 12 years ago. Ann will be a regular contributor here on Mummy Tales, where she will be offering us her insights about motherhood based on her own experiences, while at the same time infusing both her Kenyan and German backgrounds.
In her maiden post, Ann talks about the moment she learnt she was pregnant and what happened thereafter. Read on.
My pregnancy was smooth. I can’t complain. I became aware of Pumpkin growing in me after I missed my periods. They had been regular as clockwork and when they were late, I knew that I was preggers.
I however did a home pregnancy test just to confirm. I remember the day clearly.
It was on a Wednesday afternoon and after the positive results, I immediately went to see my gynaecologist even though I didn’t have an appointment. She did a scan and confirmed that I was indeed six weeks pregnant. Pumpkin was a small dot which had another dot pulsating within this bigger dot. The gyno told me that is a heartbeat and asked me if it was planned and if I wanted to keep it.
That was the first cultural shock for me! What did she mean?
In Kenya, where I grew up, we say children are a gift from God. Our public opinion is pro-life. People are not open to the issue of unwanted pregnancies and termination even though terminations do take place illegally. However, in Germany where I live, the society is liberal and it is standard procedure for a gynaecologist to ask you these questions so that you can be assisted further. If during this session where a woman is officially confirmed pregnant and she decides against keeping it, she will sent for counselling by an independent counsellor before the pregnancy can be terminated.
This official confirmation of pregnancy protects the woman from being sacked and also helps her employers to plan for her impending absence. Expectant women can be excused from work if their jobs are dangerous or involve strenuous activities for example working with chemicals, jobs that require one to stand for long hours, or do some lifting and night shifts like nurses, air hostesses, factory workers, waitresses and sales assistants. Women in those professions can be exempted from work and they would still receive their monthly salary until their maternity leave starts.
Anyway, I was given some literature on pregnancy and a prescription for folic acid and iron supplements that I was supposed to take henceforth. I was also given a small maternity booklet called Mutterpass loosely translated as “Mother’s Pass”. This booklet, which contains maternity notes about you is supposed to track the antenatal check-ups. The Estimated Date of Delivery (EDD) and results of the following tests are entered into this booklet: your blood group, the Rhesus factor, test results for Hepatitis, Rubella and STIs. However, the results for the HIV test are not written in this booklet instead you are told about your status during the next consultation.
In Germany, the gestation period is tracked in weeks as contrasted to months. Every expectant mother has to attend 12 mandatory antenatal check-ups, which involves monitoring your weight, blood pressure and urine. In addition to these 12 check-ups there are also 2 special check-ups that involve screening for anomalies: the 14th and the 20th week scans.
The 14th week scan is the Nuchal Translucency Screening (NT Screening). This scan looks possibility of the baby having Down Syndrome by looking at the amount of fluid in the baby’s neck, the nasal bone and the facial angle. This scan also checks whether the placenta is functioning as it should and if the baby is receiving enough nutrition from the mother. If the results of this scan are inconclusive the mother has an option for futher diagnostic tests like amniocentesis, which involves getting a sample of the amniotic fluid and examining it in the laboratory.
The 20th week scan enables the parents to know the sex of their child. In addition, the baby’s organs are checked and the mother is informed whether there is a need for further tests.
Eight weeks or so before birth the expectant couple is advised to attend birthing classes. The mom to be can attend these classes on her own or with her partner. The content of these classes are the birth itself, how to dress the newborn and the mother’s nutrition after birth. It is in these classes that one is advised to look for a midwife who will accompany her after birth care at home.
And that was my first pregnancy experience in Germany after taking a pregnancy test.
I’ve had many women ask why they develop varicose veins during their pregnancy. I asked obstetrician / gynaecologist Dr. Stephen Mutiso about this and he offered the following information:
MT: What are Varicose Veins and what is the association with Pregnancy?
Dr. SM: Varicose veins are swollen veins that may bulge near the surface of the skin especially in the things, the legs and the back of the calves. Veins are the blood vessels that return blood from the feet and legs to the heart. Many women first develop varicose veins in pregnancy and for those with pre-existing varicose veins, they only tend to get worse during pregnancy.
During pregnancy, blood volume increases significantly and this distends the veins. In addition, during pregnancy progesterone levels are markedly increased. Progesterone is a pregnancy hormone which relaxes blood veins and keeps them dilated causing blood to pool in the legs.
Also as the uterus grows, it puts pressure on the large vein on the back called the inferior vena cava. Compression of this vein in turn increases pressure in the leg veins.Usually varicose veins do not pose any serious threat during pregnancy.
MT: What are the Symptoms of Varicose Veins?
Dr. SM: Varicose veins are usually symptom free. However, the legs may feel heavy sometimes, they may be itchy, uncomfortable and may have some pain.
MT: How are Varicose Veins Treated?
Dr. SM: Treatment of varicose veins during pregnancy is mainly conservative. Conservative treatment involves use of compression (elastic) stockings, regular exercises, elevation of legs at night and during rest periods during the day. Weight control is also very important.
The compression stockings are designed to squeeze the leg muscles, encouraging blood to flow upwards towards the heart. Surgery should be done only for the very severe cases where conservative measures have failed. Varicose veins usually improve after child birth.
MT: Are Varicose Veins in Pregnancy Preventable?
Dr. SM: Development of varicose veins in pregnancy can be prevented in the following ways:
– Engage in regular exercises which increase circulation of blood (exercises that last at least 30 minutes daily)
– Take frequent breaks to walk around and stretch your legs
– Elevate your feet every so often
– Make it a habit not to cross your legs as this is not recommended for pregnant women
– Avoid too much weight gain during pregnancy.
– Sleeping on the left side improves blood return back to the heart and this reduces pressure on the veins in the legs.
The good thing is that varicose veins get better after delivery, when the uterus is no longer exerting pressure on the large vein (inferior vena cava).
MT: Thanks Dr. Mutiso.
So now you know. Share this info with any pregnant woman you know. Have a lovely day. Dr. Stephen Mutiso is based at KNH in Nairobi. He provides a wide range of gynaecological services including: antenatal care, delivery (normal and caesarean), infertility treatment, fibroids, fistula treatment, and screening for reproductive tract cancers and other gynaecological procedures.
Last Saturday, I met Jane Mghambi Otieno, mother to a seven-year old daughter Miriam Adhiambo. Jane had her daughter when she was a form three student at Bura Girls High School in Coast Province. Infact, by the time she was discovering she was expecting, she was already five months pregnant!
I had a chat with her about how it all happened, and what she learnt from her experience as a teenage mother. I originally published this article in the Nation.
Growing up, Jane was that kind of child that was the envy of many. She stood out among her peers, often being given leadership roles. She was a class prefect throughout primary school from class one to class eight, and when she joined secondary school, she was made prefect in the first week.
“I noticed that whenever I made a suggestion, most people seemed to be in agreement with me, and whenever I championed a cause, a majority would rally behind me,” she says, adding that everybody paid attention when she spoke.
Leadership seemed to come naturally for this second born in a family of four children. Jane was not only a role model in school, but in her neighbourhood and church as well. She was a disciplined and obedient girl who was admired for her warm and charming personality.
Her father was a senior pastor while her mother was very active in church. As you can imagine, theirs was considered a model family.
In her early teens, Jane grew close to a young man, a neighbour, also in his teens. He was Muslim, but they were in love, and their religious differences did not bother them at the time.
Two years later however, her boyfriend asked her to convert to Islam, but it was a big step, one she was unwilling to take.
“That was out of question because I was grounded in my faith and I told him as much,” she says.
But with no compromise in sight from either side, they decided to part ways. That was in December 2006 – Jane was 16 years old and in Form Two. The following year, she went back to school determined to solely focus on her studies. All was well that term, apart from a brief period when she was had vomiting spells. When she went to hospital, she was told that she had malaria and given medication.
However, one day, over the April holidays, her mother asked her to accompany her to hospital. She wondered why, yet she was not feeling unwell. But she obeyed her mother anyway. On the way there, her mother surprised her by asking her if she was pregnant.
“I was shocked, wondering why on earth my mother would suspect pregnancy. Besides, I was sure I was not pregnant because I had long broken up with my boyfriend. It had been over four months since I last had sex, so it was impossible,” she remembers.
Even though Jane and her boyfriend had not been using any contraceptives for the two years they were sexually active, she never once thought she would fall pregnant.
“My boyfriend had told me not to worry about contraceptives because I was too young to get pregnant. When I did not conceive for months despite regular unprotected sex with him, I concluded he was right.”
So for her mother to insinuate pregnancy was completely out of order, she reckoned.
At the hospital, her urine sample was taken, with the results being shared only with her mother. Once out of the doctor’s room, her mother asked Jane to accompany her to a nearby hotel for a meal.
It was while enjoying the meal that her mother dropped the bombshell. She bluntly asked Jane: “who is the father?”
Despite her not having received her periods for four months, Jane had not been alarmed for she thought they were just irregular. And besides, she had always believed her boyfriend’s words – that she was too young to get pregnant. But she knew there was no way her mother could be bluffing.
“I could not believe it. How could I be pregnant? How had it happened? My mother had given me the ‘sex talk’ many times. We had also been taught sex education in school, in church and in the numerous youth camps I had attended. I had all the information I needed, yet I had disregarded it, and went on to have unprotected sex – I was disappointed in myself.”
Jane (left) and I during my interview with her for this article.Jane was in for further shock when she was informed that her pregnancy was already five months old. How, yet her physique had not changed much and she still easily fitted into her clothes? Turns out that the malaria diagnosis she had been given after the vomiting spells had actually been morning sickness!
But Jane thanks God for her mother and how she handled the pregnancy news.
“My mom expressed her disappointment in me, but she told me that since it had happened, we needed to accept it and move forward. I could see the hurt in her eyes, but she did not raise her voice, she was calm. This comforted me, knowing that I had her support despite the obvious disappointment.”
Though her mother had assured her that she would stand by her, the thought of how her father would react drove her to tears.
“My father was a very strict man, a disciplinarian, and a respected leader in the community. A senior pastor. He had sacrificed so much to ensure we got a good education, yet here I was, pregnant. I had failed him, and I was certain he would never forgive me.”
For a week, Jane avoided her father, staying locked up in her bedroom whenever he was around. At one point, she even contemplated suicide, rather than face him. Were it not for her mother’s constant care and reassurance, she says she would have done it.
“The shame, embarrassment and pain I had caused him was too much for me to handle. I wanted to die.”
One morning, her father summoned her. The first words he said crushed the faint hope that she would one day get her father’s forgiveness. He said: “You have chosen to shame me?”
“I cried as I apologized, saying how sorry I was, assuring him that it would never happen again, that I could still make him a proud father someday,” she remembers.
Her father listened to her intently, but said nothing, instead walking away. Jane was left feeling horrible.
After that incident, Jane wrote a letter to her boyfriend, informing him of the pregnancy. He did not deny responsibility, and a few weeks later, arrived at her parents’ house accompanied by several relatives.
“He admitted to being responsible for my pregnancy and said he was ready to marry me. His family was very well known to us since we were neighbours and had been friends for years.
Our families had respectful discussions about the matter, but my father made it clear that I was not going to get married at that young age, since he wanted me to go back to school after having my baby.”
By then, news of her pregnancy had spread fast in her school, neighbourhood and church. The pastor’s daughter, the disciplined, obedient girl, the role model and leader was now the joke of the neighbourhood. Wherever she went, she would notice the judgemental stares and whispers.
Some of her friends urged her to have an abortion and in fact, one even generously offered her Sh10,000 to get it done, telling her that she was too young to be a mother, too bright to be a school dropout.
“It was not a loan, but a ‘helpful’ gesture from someone who believed in my promising future, but I did not take the money – I just could not consider having an abortion.”
But the most humiliating moment for her was when she had to adhere to the requirements of her church, the stipulated penalty for ‘sexual sin’. Guilty congregants had to publicly confess and seek apology from church members for their sin, and that is exactly what she did.
She remembers that day vividly.
“It was at the main service on a Sunday. Word had gone round that I would be making a public apology that day, so the church was full to capacity. In the middle of the service, the pastor called me to “say something.” As I walked to the front of the church, my head bowed in shame, my stomach now visibly protruding, I felt like dying. I took the microphone, and with the little courage I had left, I apologized to the church for sinning, apologized for letting them down and asked for their forgiveness.”
But it is what happened next that took her by complete surprise.
“I was supposed to apologize, ask for forgiveness, and then return to my seat, but just after I finished talking, my father rose from his seat, walked over to me and embraced me. As he hugged me, he told me that he had forgiven me, and that everything was going to be fine. He told me that he loved me, and that he was going to take care of me and my child. Tears streamed down my face as he said those words to me, as he held me close. I cannot describe the relief I felt, knowing that my father had forgiven me. Nothing else mattered after that,” Jane says.
As he led her back to a seat next to him, she held her head high, no longer ashamed. Her father’s assurance of his love had given her a new lease of life.
Jane started her antenatal clinics at six months pregnant, with her mother accompanying her that first visit.
“Mother took good care of me during the pregnancy, ensuring that I ate well and even regularly taking me for brisk walks, telling me that this mild exercise would ease my delivery.”
In August 2007, Jane delivered a healthy baby girl, weighing 3kg. Her parents were present at the hospital to receive the baby, who they proudly showed off to visitors.
Three months after the birth, Jane’s father began searching for a school for her. By then, the family had moved from Voi, Taita Taveta County, where she grew up, to Nairobi. He managed to secure an interview for her at a day school not far from where they lived. Jane passed the interview, and the following year, joined the school as a Form Three student.
“I was a student by day and a mother by night. Each evening after school, I would bath my daughter, wash her clothes and prepare her food for the following day. My mother took care of her during the day.”
To ease her parent’s financial burden of taking care of both she and her daughter, Jane would buy groundnuts and mabuyu at a wholesale price from her aunt in Voi, which she would then sell at a retail price to her friends in school. In a day, she would make a profit of about Sh 200.
“I used this money to buy diapers, milk and clothes for my daughter,” she says.
Later that year, during third term, Jane’s classmates and teachers urged her to vie for the headgirl’s position. She took up the challenge, sent an application letter stating her interest in the position, and after a vetting process by the election board, she began her campaign.
“I got 99 per cent of the votes to become headgirl, a position I held until I completed Form Four.”
She performed well in her final exams and was invited to join Kenyatta University, where she studied Economics and Finance. Here, she was a class representative from her first to fourth year. Today, Jane works at a leadership institute in Nairobi.
Besides this, she also regularly visits schools where she shares her experience with the students, hoping that it will encourage them to make more informed choices. She also encourages parents to have the kind of relationship with their children where their children can feel free to come to them with any issue at all, including when they have made mistakes.
“Some young girls end up procuring backstreet abortions many of which either kill them or leave them physically and emotionally damaged. Some children even prefer to commit suicide rather than face their parents when they have failed in something. I encourage parents to have an open-door policy with their children, to let them know that no matter what, they will still support them,” she says.
Jane is not in contact with her daughter’s father, but she is at peace with this, since, as she explains, they had already broken up before she discovered she was pregnant.
She has found love a second time, and is engaged and looking forward to getting married soon. Currently she lives with her parents, who dot over their granddaughter, Miriam.
“I think my dad loves my daughter much more than I do,” she jokes.
Nabubwaya Chambers is a Kenyan mom living in Texas, USA with her husband and their 17-month old son Lema. Nabubwaya loves sharing her motherhood experiences with us here and this week, she lets us know how they spend some of their outdoor bonding sessions as a family. Read on.
“One of the reasons why my husband and I absolutely anticipates the weekends is because we get to take our boy Lema to the park. He loves to play at the swings, take walks, ride in his stroller, watch the fishes and the ducks swimming in the lake, and just be outside feeling the cool breeze on a great, spring day. It is like every day at the park is a brand new experience for him. The smile on his face and the flooding joy that consumes him makes me happy. I enjoy watching my little boy while at the park. It reminds me of how beautiful it is to stop and enjoy the simple things in life. Here are some photos from the park.”
I’m sure you know Boniface Mwangi. He certainly needs no introduction. But incase you don’t know him, he is ‘that activist guy’. Google for more info.
Bonficace is a husband and father of three. The road to fatherhood has not been so smooth though. In his words:
“8th March 2008 is the day l got married and this Sunday, my wife and I shall be celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary by joining the First Lady at the Beyond Zero marathon.
Taking part in the First Lady’s marathon for me is personal;
On June 2, 2009 we lost our unborn baby and my wife almost died from complications that followed. If I can spare another family the kind of agony my family and I went through from this horrible ordeal by running in this marathon, then I am in no doubt that I must run this race. My wife and I shall also be donating Sh100,000 to the First Lady’s 2015 half marathon.
The second reason I will be running in the First Lady’s marathon is that we need to support Margaret Kenyatta who has chosen to take up maternal mortality and literally, run with it. The 8 March 2015 race targets to raise Sh600 million for the campaign.
Margaret spearheads her campaign as an active citizen. Active citizens aren’t those who complain and whine about a problem but those who take a firm stand. An active citizen (otherwise called an activist) is someone who sees a problem and takes a step to do something about it. I wish we could all follow her example and do more than just threaten or promise to take action.
On Sunday, my family shall join the First Lady in the marathon. We should all support Margaret to help her meet her target soon so that she can embark on other Kenya-changing campaigns. After all, she doesn’t just say she will run, she actually runs. While others threaten to take action and post #hashtags and selfies, she is busy doing her best to reduce maternal mortality.“
So that’s why Bonny will be running for Beyond Zero. I too will be joining the First Lady tomorrow, and in this post I wrote yesterday, I shared why doing so is important to me.
Two weeks ago, as I was undertaking some research for an article on sexual abuse on women and why some fail to report these cases, there was something in the four out of six interviewees I spoke to that piqued my interest.
One lady, a 19-year-old college student shared about her rape ordeal two years ago. Having been introduced to the man by a fellow comrade, and with all three having gone out on four different occasions for some drinks and dance, she felt comfortable enough to accept the dinner date he proposed. The dinner went well and later on, as he drove to his house, she was not alarmed for she knew that the well-mannered, highly educated and respectable man would cause her no harm.
But she was wrong.
Despite her saying ‘no’ to his sexual advances, the man raped her repeatedly in his house before ordering her to take a shower and dropping her back to her hostel. Feeling violated and angered, she wanted nothing more than to see to it that the man faced the law. But one thing held her back: her mother.
How so?
Her mother would be heartbroken, devastated if she learnt of the rape incident. This lady is the last born –an only girl among four boys. She was certain her mother, who had raised her up so well and given her enough talks about ‘men’ would never recover, imagining what the rape episode had been like for her daughter.
“My mother would die if she knew I had been raped. That’s why I never told a soul,” she told me.
The second lady I spoke to said that she had suffered sexual abuse in the hands of a male relative who lived in their home when she was a teenager. The now 27-year-old never disclosed the incident to anyone because she feared what it would do to her mother –a widow who was already struggling with her three children.
The relative who had raped her was her first cousin –whose father (her uncle) had been very helpful in supporting her mother after her husband –his brother died. In fact, this uncle had been paying part of her school fees. After agonizing for days over whether to report the incident, while reflecting on the difficult situation she would put her mother in with regard to family relations, she decided to keep mum about it.
The other two ladies I spoke to shared almost similar sentiments. The main reason why they did not speak out about their rape ordeals was because they did not want to stress their mothers. Their mothers already had enough problems so no need to raise their pressure levels. Further, when they thought of the blame, shame and ridicule society puts on rape victims, and more so, the devastating effects it would have on their moms, they chose silence. They chose to go to the grave with their secret rather than subject their mothers to that kind of pain.
If you talk to any mother, they will tell you that they will do anything to protect their children, including laying down their lives for them. They do their best to create a protected environment for them, environments that will allow them to prosper and become responsible adults.
But sometimes, even with the best laid protection plans, some things do happen.
And it got me thinking –isn’t it so sad that parents, and in the cases mentioned above -mothers put in so many protective measures for their daughters, such that the children are similarly willing to protect them from any form of hurt –at the expense of their own physical, emotional, mental and psychological health?
How can we as parents create an environment where our children can have no reservations whatsoever to come to us with any issue that is troubling them –regardless of perceived consequences?
What would you want your daughter to do in such a circumstance? To tell you or to keep mum?
*I first published this article in my weekly parenting column in The Star.
A happy mother and her child. Courtesy: Photoshare
Faith Oneya is a journalist and creative writer. And she’s very good in market research too. Faith is mom to one beautiful baby girl called Imora, who is almost a year old. When she told me her baby’s name, it sounded so beautiful I had to ask her what it mean. She told me Imora means ”you make me happy” in Luo. Lovely!
So Faith would like to share with us her breastfeeding experience. As I have come to discover -from my own personal experience, and from the experiences of almost every other mother that I talk to, breastfeeding did not come easy. Nope, not at all. Faith today offers us insights into her own experience. And she has some lessons for first time moms to learn as well. Read on…
“I hate to admit it, but I am sort of a know-it-all. Actually I am a know-it-all. I don’t know the roots of this attitude exactly, but I certainly know that it worked out terribly for me as a new mother.
You see, when I was pregnant with my daughter, instead of asking veteran mothers questions, I Googled and Googled then Googled some more. I read all the “How To” motherhood books I could lay my hands on and YouTubed “little” things like breastfeeding, changing baby diapers and washing baby.
I remember a mummy friend suggesting to me to go for classes on motherhood at one of the local hospitals.
“What for?” I shrugged.
“They can teach you how to deal with your baby as a new mum,” she replied.
“I’m a reader,” I replied, slightly annoyed. “I have read all I need to know about motherhood, I do not need those tu-lectures on the same.”
And that marked the beginning of my downfall.
My pregnancy was smooth. Everything went like Google and “What to Expect when Expecting” book said it would.
After twelve hours of labour, I held a healthy, beautiful baby girl in my arms, ready to start applying the knowledge I had accumulated in excess on the poor little child.
“Breastfeed the baby immediately,” the doctor advised.
I put my baby girl on my breast, just like Youtube had taught me. But….nothing.
“Why is she not breastfeeding?”I asked anxiously, turning virtual pages in my head trying to think of which page in the books I had read had some advice on breastfeeding. The nurse, a sturdy woman who looked like a retired weightlifter, lifted my breast and shoved it into the baby’s mouth. To say I was uncomfortable is an understatement.
Baby struggled to feed for the next two days. Eventually, she had to be put on formula. Needless to say that I walked out of the hospital on the third day with wounds for breasts.
In retrospect, I should have refused to leave the hospital until I could breastfeed without pain or anguish. But I was itching to go back to my other bible at the time: “Secrets of the Baby Whisperer” to learn how to breastfeed.
I spent the next six weeks crying each time the baby breastfed whilst madly searching online for solutions. I bought creams, popped painkillers and prayed -but nothing seemed to work. And then I decided to do what I should have done in the first place. I asked for help.
I called up my friends who were mothers. I called up my friends’ mothers. I talked to people on Kilimani Mums and Pregnant Mum Support Group on Facebook.
I got encouragement, suggestions and cheap, workable solutions for my problem. I was referred to a lactation specialist who, thank heavens, was also a trained counsellor. She charged me consultation fees, yes, but gave me so much value for my money that I almost cried in gratitude. I used breast shells on her recommendation and little by little, my healing started.
The shells protected my breasts from further damage or contact with my clothes. I also kept moisturizing and holding my baby the right way so that she could latch on to the breast properly.
“Speak positive things to yourself. Tell yourself you are a great mother. You wake up three or more times at night to feed your baby. Tell yourself you will breastfeed without pain one day. You carried her for nine months. Laboured for hours and finally got her. She is a healthy, beautiful girl. You must be doing something right,” I remember her saying.
I went to the supermarket after that talk and got myself yellow sticky notes. I wrote down every word that she had said, even added my own like: “You are beautiful”, “You are a great mum”, “You have such a cute baby” and stuck them on the bed’s headboard.
My husband was puzzled when he came home later that day and I could see him struggling not to ask what was going on.
“I am tired of negativity in my life,” I offered before he could ask.
He nodded. Perhaps understanding that it was not in his place to understand what was going on. The journey to pain-free breastfeeding was painful, slow but totally rewarding in the end. I learned the hard way that friendship and advice from people that care for you cannot be Googled.“
So that is Faith’s breastfeeding experience. Definitely insightful. From all the brestfeeding experiences I hear from fellow moms – myself included – breastfeeding truly did not come easy. Ah-ah. Not at all. But you know what all moms say? That asking for help is very important. Moms, don’t be afraid to ask for help. You need it. Hope this helps!
Anne Mawathe of Citizen TV recently brought the story of Migori County women’s representative Dennitah Ghati. Dennitah, a former journalist and mom to a five year-old girl survived a horrific road accident last year in March.
After going through episodes of denial and now acceptance, this parliamentarian is today speaking out about her experience and adjustment to her new life -that of someone with disability.
Dennitah is keen on bringing change in the attitudes that society has towards people with disability, where their basic concerns are hardly ever given the priority they deserve.
Dennitah was making her second appearance on Citizen TV’s ‘Strength of a Woman’ segment, having been featured previously in June 2013.
Current info to note: There will be a First Aid training by the Amara Initiative on Saturday 28 September 2019. More details on the poster at the end of this article.
In August 2011, Alice and Anthony Kibagendi who had gotten married the year before welcomed their first child, a daughter whom they named Amara.
“Amara was a very beautiful, sweet and bubbly baby who brightened up our lives. Every day, my husband and I would look forward to our return home to spend time with our little princess,” Alice remembers.
Alice and her daughter Amara.
But on the evening of 2 March 2012, the worst happened. Amara choked while being fed on a meal of mashed potatoes mixed with milk by her nanny. While feeding, Amara started coughing persistently and on noticing this, her nanny began patting her back. When Amara started going faint, her nanny raised the alarm.
Good samaritans came to the rescue. However, baby Amara was already unresponsive, and so began the rush to hospital. One of these good samaritans, a nurse, performed First Aid on Amara as they headed to hospital but unfortunately, Amara was pronounced dead on arrival. She passed away at the tender age of just six months. Her parents were crushed.
“It was sudden, something we had never imagined would happen. It was unbelievable that she was with us one minute, and the next she was gone, without warning. Losing a child is the worst form of tragedy that any parent can go through. It is a kind of pain that pierces right through your heart,” Alice says.
The days after Amara’s passing -as the family made burial plans, were particularly excruciating.
“I was in shock. I asked God so many questions but never seemed to get answers. I cried until I could cry no more,” she says.
But as friends and relatives streamed into the Kibagendi home to comfort them, Alice picked up something in the words of comfort they received from the countless visitors.
“Many would tell me that they knew of other babies who had choked, that I should take heart because ‘these things happen to many babies’. Almost everyone who visited me had a story to share about a baby who had choked. Some mothers had actually been the ones feeding their own babies when they choked to death. Even in my own sorrow, my heart wept for these moms. I could only imagine their pain and the blame they heaped on themselves for the tragedy,” she says.
Prior to baby Amara’s passing, Alice had only ever heard of one other choking incident in a baby. And even then, she had asked herself thousands of questions on a cause of death that she viewed as preventable.
“I wondered what the housegirl had been doing at the time the child was choking. Was she engaged in other chores? Was she watching television perhaps? Was she on the phone maybe? What exactly had she been doing that led to the baby’s choking,” Alice had wondered.
But there she was now, mourning her own daughter — a death in similar circumstances. Her nanny had not been doing other things. She had not been watching television. She had not been on the phone. She had been feeding Amara. It had been an accident.
When baby Amara choked, Alice was at work. The more she replayed her daughter’s last moments, the more she questioned herself, wondering if she herself would have been capable of saving Amara had she been present.
“I asked myself if I really knew how to handle a baby who was choking. The more I asked myself, the more I realized that I did not really know how to properly assist a choking person — a clearly life-threatening medical emergency.”
Her desire to fill this knowledge gap is what led Alice to enroll for a basic First Aid course.
“I didn’t want to be unprepared in case the need ever arose. Choking could happen to anyone — whether a child or an adult — and I wanted to be equipped with the right knowledge and skills on how to handle such an emergency,” she says.
Alice mobilized many members of her family and friends to attend the basic First Aid training as well. Even after the training, she continued to research more on First Aid. She would spend her days watching videos on the internet and reading hundreds of articles on the same. She would then share all she had learnt with her friends mostly through her Facebook account.
“I would receive numerous responses, with most people asking me where they could be trained on basic First Aid. Many of them were parents with little babies. I understood where they were coming from.”
Alice then realized that her friends represented thousands of other people out there — people who needed to be equipped with basic First Aid skills. She decided to do something about it.
In June 2012, just three months after baby Amara’s death, she set up the Amara Initiative.
“The goal of Amara Initiative is to ensure that as many people in society have the skills necessary to intervene in a life-threatening situation before professional medical assistance arrives. This, after realizing that both children and adults die in situations where basic First Aid could have saved their lives.”
Once a month, the Amara Initiative would conduct a basic First Aid training. Participants were mainly composed of parents with young children (employers) and their employees (nannies). Among others, the training curriculum includes not only choking, but accidents around the house, such as poisoning, burns, cuts, bites, stings, falls and even instances of children drowning in buckets of water.
But as the training progressed, Alice noticed something among the participants.
“I realized that putting employers and employees in one class did not work well. Many of the nannies felt intimidated learning together with their employers which made them uneasy during the day-long training. Aside from that, their learning paces were different — some nannies were illiterate and did not know how to read and write and so did not grasp issues as easily as their educated employers did,” she says.
With this realization, Alice changed strategy and began offering separate training sessions for nannies and parents.
But the separation of nannies and parents led to another set of discoveries.
“As we talked to them about minimizing choking risks for babies, the nannies would open up and share details which we were previously not privy to. They revealed that some parents were very strict with their children’s meals and schedules. That their child had to eat at a certain time, finish all their food and be asleep by a certain time. This would force the caregiver to make the child eat quickly, sometimes force-feeding the child — one of the great risks for choking.
Sometimes, despite the child being visibly full, the nannies would still make him continue eating because of the parent’s insistence that the child clear his plate, or else the nanny would be liable. Scared of losing their job, the nannies would continue stuffing food in the child’s mouth — another risk factor for choking,” Alice says.
There were countless other such revelations that Alice and her team became aware of about feeding practices that put the children at increased risk for not only choking, but other accidents in the house as well. Instances where the employer leaves instructions on a long list of house chores that must be completed by a certain time, or else the nanny would be severely reprimanded. This pressure would make the nannies focus on their chores and forget to keep a close eye on baby leading to accidents around the house.
In addition, the nanny trainings also shed light on another aspect.
“Some nannies have grown up in rural areas and come with their own knowledge and remedies for certain situations. For example, if someone is bleeding, the best way they know how to contain the bleeding is apply raw banana juice or other herbs which are easily accessible in the village. But in an urban town, they do not know where to find these traditional remedies and are left stranded, yet the injured person continues to bleed and get worse. We shared all that we had learnt from the nannies with the other training group — mainly composed of parents, and this also helped inform our curriculum,” she says.
Three years on, the Amara Initiative continues to carry out monthly basic First Aid trainings. The classes are now mostly composed of nannies, sponsored to the course by their employers. Each class sees an average of 25 participants.
Since the launch of Amara Initiative, over 1,200 people — mostly nannies — have received training. Alice has never once missed a training.
“Since I began the initiative, I have received numerous calls, text messages and emails of people telling me that because of the First Aid skills they received for the Amara Initiative training, they are more confident about handling any emergency that may come along their way. I have had people tell me that they have actually applied the knowledge they received in an accident situation in their own home and saved the life of a dear one!”
Aside from the monthly trainings at a designated venue, Amara Initiative also conducts on-site trainings, such as in schools where they train teachers. Currently, Amara Initiative conducts its activities only in Nairobi, but Alice plans to expanding the Initiative’s work to other towns. She also hopes to produce educative basic First Aid videos and other learning material that are tailored to the Kenyan context.
The work of Amara Initiative is a daily source of inspiration for Alice. Through it, she believes that baby Amara continues to serve her purpose on earth.
“She may have been with us physically for a very short time — just six months — but her legacy lives on. Every other day, Amara helps save a life. She continues to be our pride and joy,” Alice says.
Alice and her husband Anthony Kibagendi have since been blessed with another daughter, baby Anaya, who is now four months old.
You can find Amara Initiative on Facebook or 0718 011 996 or info@amarainitiative.co.ke
See details below on upcoming First Aid training by Amara Initiative.
Have you gone through an experience in your parenting journey that you would like to share with other parents? Something that we could learn from? You may email me onmaryanne@mummytales.com
The smile on his face and the flooding joy that consumes him makes me happy. I enjoy watching my little boy while at the park. It reminds me of how beautiful it is to stop and enjoy the simple things in life. Here are some photos from the park.”
