Many years ago I read an article that stuck with me. It stated that the greatest danger facing a woman in Afghanistan is to get pregnant. This fact shook me. Yet, our experience in East Africa confirms this, 87% of global maternal deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Edward, who oversees the Engikaret location where there is a clinic in Tanzania, shared his reality with us. “Before this clinic was here, the women and children were passing a hard time, especially the time of delivery. Personally, five women delivered in my car while I was rushing them to hospital. Two of them lost their babies because of delays, one of them gave birth to twins in the car and we lost one; and the rest of the babies are alive.” He oversees a school at the same property and said, “I remember one of our teachers gave birth before getting to the hospital, just out of the car while we were getting to the labor room, the baby came out.”
Healthcare facilities are not readily available in many locations and additionally, people do not have money to pay for care. They stay home and hope for simple deliveries, and try to get a health facility only when they are desperate and something has gone wrong. But Edward said, “Since we started this clinic I did not experience those challenges because if a lady gets into the labor at the boma (Maasai home) they call me for help to bring to our clinic.” His days of driving a couple of hours on rough tracks and then potholed roads to try to get a woman in labor to a hospital are over. The clinic changes the community!
That is why Loom partners invest in maternal health. We believe God intends all humanity to thrive. In our work with vulnerable children, our reality is often that someone considered a child in some cultures is a mother in others. Early childhood marriage means that teenagers are giving birth when their bodies are not developed enough, leading to more complications. To holistically impact a community, together with our partners in Africa, we continue to work to eradicate early childhood marriage, do capacity building in the physical, emotional, spiritual and scientific areas, while also working to see infrastructure established in seemingly forgotten places. Edward continued, ”Since we started the clinic 30 women delivered here and babies are really doing well. Also, Maasai women come here to get advice on how to take care of their babies in a healthy way.”
Through the help of a generous donor, Loom invested in extending the labor and recovery ward, so that mothers could have a place to stay after giving birth, eliminating the need to walk long distances home in the heat. Since then Edward reports, “Recently a woman came to the clinic with complications and her life and that of the baby were saved. The new labor (ward) you helped us to renovate has enough space and is going to be a great help in this community.”
This is the core of our work. Relational commitment creates the platform for openness in learning and age-old cultural practices to be reassessed in the light of truth. There are dire realities facing families, yet a local innovator, partnered with infrastructure and skills can save the life of a child and mother and give hope in a community. We do not change global statistics in a moment, but we are part of changing the world one child, one baby, one family at a time. Thank you for being part of our ongoing perseverance.
