This is a photograph I took last week of Gemma Raby, one of the midwives from the fascinating Channel 4 TV series, One Born every Minute.
She was at the London base of Save The Children talking about her trip to Liberia to see how different life for pregnant, labouring and new mums is out there compared to here in the UK.
You can read a bit more about her trip here but I wanted to write just a short post about how moved I was by her keynote speech, along with those from the other speakers at the blogger event organised to educate and inspire us to work with STC on their soon-to-be launched new campaign.
More of that soon -I'm still reeling from some of the horrific facts and figures I learned and I'm not ashamed to say that along with the very lovely Gemma I choked back a tear or two as we all felt empathy and sympathy for mums giving birth in the dark, alone, on the roadside with no friendly face, never mind a trained midwife. For the teenage mum who walked 9 hours, in labour, alone through the bush to reach a medical facility. For those babies who die from something as seemingly easily fixed as an infection of their umbilical stump. How do you clean it with clean boiled water if there is none? For the mother who died from an infection caused by a fragment of retained placenta and her baby who died of starvation because mummy couldn't feed her newborn and they had to wait 3 weeks for Daddy to work and earn the money to get transport to the hospital. And by then it was too late.
Need a tissue yet?
I could go on and on. I apologise to my friends who have already listened to me go on and on. But I could sob with the injustice of it. And I am looking forward to doing my little bit in my corner of the tinter web - I'm going to shout and shake my fist and stamp my feet until everyone knows about the new campaign being launched on February 25.
Because this I believe with my heart and soul-
She was at the London base of Save The Children talking about her trip to Liberia to see how different life for pregnant, labouring and new mums is out there compared to here in the UK.
You can read a bit more about her trip here but I wanted to write just a short post about how moved I was by her keynote speech, along with those from the other speakers at the blogger event organised to educate and inspire us to work with STC on their soon-to-be launched new campaign.
More of that soon -I'm still reeling from some of the horrific facts and figures I learned and I'm not ashamed to say that along with the very lovely Gemma I choked back a tear or two as we all felt empathy and sympathy for mums giving birth in the dark, alone, on the roadside with no friendly face, never mind a trained midwife. For the teenage mum who walked 9 hours, in labour, alone through the bush to reach a medical facility. For those babies who die from something as seemingly easily fixed as an infection of their umbilical stump. How do you clean it with clean boiled water if there is none? For the mother who died from an infection caused by a fragment of retained placenta and her baby who died of starvation because mummy couldn't feed her newborn and they had to wait 3 weeks for Daddy to work and earn the money to get transport to the hospital. And by then it was too late.
Need a tissue yet?
I could go on and on. I apologise to my friends who have already listened to me go on and on. But I could sob with the injustice of it. And I am looking forward to doing my little bit in my corner of the tinter web - I'm going to shout and shake my fist and stamp my feet until everyone knows about the new campaign being launched on February 25.
Because this I believe with my heart and soul-
NO CHILD IS BORN TO DIE
This post is linked to the #whatsthestory linky run by the lovely Charly at Podcast - click the green badge to discover lots more fabulous blogs!