Birth Kit Drive

maamawaabangi · November 2016

(((Please remove if this isn't allowed))) Just something I had to share...

I was about to order my home birth kit (its about $60 and has all the supplies my in-home midwife will need to help me deliver my baby… things like a baby hat, chux pads, sterile tools, a thermometer, gloves, iodine) and I remembered that I usually order/donate a similar “mama kit” to mother’s in need at the same time.

A friend of mine, via adoption, has an organization that supplies “mama kits” to in need women in Uganda. She started Mercy for Mamas after adopting her daughter who was orphaned at birth when her mother died in childbirth. Uganda has one of the most perilous maternity care systems in the world. Approximately 30,000 new borns die a year in Uganda and around 6000 women a year die in childbirth, and personally, I think it’s probably far higher than that due to poor statistic reporting in slum and rural area. When a mother dies there they just bury her/baby and move on, it may be double or more than what is reported/recorded.

The common denominator in good care in Uganda is the “mama kit”… a kit that has all the supplies a new mother needs to bring to the hospital with her in order to be admitted for care. Without it a laboring woman is usually turned away by the hospital to birth in dangerous circumstances or completely on her own!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/leila-chirayath-janah/think-you-have-it-tough-t_b_5676086.html

or

https://nytlive.nytimes.com/…/without-birthing-kit-pregnant…/

Mercy for Mama’s donates the kits to maternity homes for “unwed” (stigmatized) young mothers and also hands them out in rural areas to older mothers who are more at-risk for attempting to deliver alone to save money or because they don't have what is needed to be admitted … both demographics of women are at great risk for death. "Maama kits" not only save the life of a mother (and improve maternal healtcare) but they help the orphan crisis that exists in Uganda. Save a mama, save a child. It's literally a two for one gift! I can vouch that every dollar donate via Mercy for Mama goes straight to a kit for a mother.

The catch is this… a “mama kit” is only $7.
That’s it. Crazy, huh?
Basically, the cost of 2 venti mochas at Starbucks.

I wanted to put this out there for anyone to join me in donating a kit in honor of their upcoming birth.
If you’ve delivered your baby you have great cause for thankfulness, why not “pay it forward”?

Any how, if you donate would you please specify its from “December ’16 Due Date Club” and we can shower these women with our love and help them to have their babies safely and with the most care that can be provided to them!

DONATE HERE https://www.mercyformamas.com/p/what-is-mama-kit.html

Thanks for listening and considering,
Marci

Other articles:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sheet_us_55dde5f4e4b0a40aa3acffc0

https://www.theinsider.ug/mother-blames-death-of-her-triplets-on-kadagas-visit-to-jinja-hospital/

https://www.businessinsider.com/clinic-where-women-give-birth-in-rural-uganda-2016-8/#the-consultation-room-is-also-used-as-a-surgery-room-when-doctors-from-non-governmental-organizations-like-marie-stopes-international-are-on-site-those-doctors-perform-tubal-ligation-a-sterilization-procedure-that-entails-tying-the-fallopian-tubes-and-insert-intrauterine-devices-iuds-7