Maternal Health
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| Maternal and Child Health |
In
2010, I was 13 years old when my aunt Cindy had her second child, a little girl
named Serenity. My aunt was the first person in my family that I had been
around when they were pregnant so I was able to witness her getting morning
sickness, having cravings, feet getting swollen, and her stomach growing with
each passing month until she eventually had her daughter. Just like she did
with her first child, my aunt needed a C-section but since she had scar tissue
from her previous delivery, it took the doctors a while to get Serenity out. I
was so distracted by the adorable baby girl in her arms that I didn’t really
pay much attention to the fact that she had to deliver her child in a different
method. In my mind, she just gave birth and that was natural so it wasn’t a big
deal that she had a C-section. It wasn’t really until she had her third and
last child about two years later that I realized she was putting her body and
life at risk. With her last pregnancy, she once again had to have a C-section and told us that her doctors strongly advise her to never get pregnant again or
she risks her life as well as her child’s. She made it very clear to her
husband that they had three kids and she would not be putting her life on the
line for one more child and risk her life or child’s and leave him alone with
three kids.
At this point, pregnancy became a bit scary
for me. Especially as I learned about pregnancy stories from the other women in
my family. My mom had three kids but my older brother had the worst pregnancy
and resulted in her getting postpartum depression. My mom went into the
hospital and before she knew it, my brother's heart had suddenly stopped and
doctors and nurses rushed to her side and saved my brother but resulted in my
mother tearing so horribly that she needed 40 stitches. She had a four-year
girl to take care of as well and my dad and Grandmother had to help out for
months as my mother came home and was seemingly just gone and unresponsive to
everyone. After a few weeks, she got better but she struggles remembering what
happened for the first few weeks of my brother’s life. When she became pregnant
with me nine years later, she states it was the most calm, peaceful, and
easiest recovery she had. In her case she started with a great first pregnancy,
a traumatic second pregnancy, and then a great and final pregnancy.
After watching the film Sister: Working to
Improve Global Maternal Health, I became very grateful for living in place
where we had proper care and resources for expecting mothers. The film follows pregnant
women and maternal workers in Ethiopia, Cambodia and Haiti as they struggle
with the crisis of maternal and newborn mortality with lack of money,
transport, communication, and education. This is a film I saw once but it was
enough to leave an impact on me and break my heart for these parents and
children who are struggling with things we take for advantage. We meet several
people with their own stories and backgrounds such as Philomene Jocien Gracias,
a traditional birth attendant that has helped women deliver babies since she
was 12 years old. We meet a father named Yeang Yul who is now a widower after
his wife died when her placenta didn’t pass after childbirth, leaving him with
three children. There is also Houy Chandy who has helped provide transport for
women who cannot get to hospitals and are at risk of dying. We come face to
face with the harsh realities of 1 in 4,800 women dying from childbirth-related
causes in the US but these numbers are numbers in comparison to Cambodia and
Haiti, where the numbers are 1 in 44 and 1 in 48 women.
Not everyone is the same when it comes to
their pregnancies and postpartum. As I got older, medical care started to
become more important to me and opened my eyes to how there is much to improve
on but also much to be grateful for. Living in America, my aunt was able to go
through three C-sections and have three healthy babies and my big brother
survived after his heart had suddenly stopped when my mom was in labor. While
it was intense, both women and their children survived and are still healthy to
this day. America isn’t perfect when it comes to its medical care and that’s
made clear as millions of people fight for better health care, child care, and
abortion rights. It’s terrifying to imagine places such as Ethiopia, Cambodia
and Haiti struggling with things such as transportation to go to hospitals for
the proper care they need and how mothers struggle to even provide food for
their infants as some cannot afford formula or create breastmilk. The film Sisters
concludes that, with access to appropriate care, 95% of the pregnancy and
childbirth related deaths are preventable so I hope that as we continue to
develop that we can go and help other countries that are in desperate need of
help and prevent the unnecessary loss of a woman and child.
References
Sister: Working to Improve Global
Maternal Health. (2013). Kanopy. Retrieved
April 26, 2022,
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