A mother's desperation, a mother's hope
Posted by Jane Chen
Recently, I witnessed a desperate mother who did not have the means to save her own child.
I traveled to Shivgarh, a village in northern India, a few months ago, where I was conducting research for Embrace. As we asked the local women questions on how we could improve the design of our Infant Warmer, I noticed a young mother in the group of women, perhaps only 18 or 19 years old, holding a tiny baby in her arms. She wore a worried expression, yet as we continued interviewing the women, she began to look at me with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Afterwards, the young woman approached us with her child. Her baby was jaundiced and underweight. She explained he was 7 days old and had been ill for the last 3 days. The baby needed hospital care, but the nearest big hospital was over 3 hours away, and she could not afford to get there. The cost would have been equivalent to what she needed to support her entire family for a few days - 100 rupees ($2 US).
This this is not an uncommon story. But what is remarkable is the fact that a mother, no matter how poor or impoverished, will go to any length to save her baby. A well respected doctor in Bombay told me, “I have seen the poorest women, from the most remote villages, give birth in my hospital. If their babies are sick, even if they themselves are suffering from illness and severe infections, they will be right by their baby’s side. Doing everything they possibly can to care for them.”
As I witnessed this firsthand, I couldn’t help but think of all the situations where a desperate mother has nowhere to turn and as a result, her infant dies. I thought of all the babies that die or grow up sickly as a result of not being able to access proper medical treatment. And as these thoughts rushed through me, I felt a deep sense of solidarity, as a woman amongst mothers. In that moment I realized that our mission goes beyond helping babies. Embrace empowers women to save their children.
As I came to this realization, I was reminded of a class I took two years ago at Stanford University in International Health. When I asked the professor why infant mortality is considered a major economic indicator, his answer was clear and direct: “because it serves as a mirror for society.”
Through my experiences, I’ve come to understand exactly what he meant. I have seen firsthand that mothers will do anything they can to save their babies. And yet 450 babies die every hour around the world. In villages where this toll is a reality, it is simply beyond a mother’s means to save her children. The problem lies in extreme poverty, in inadequate infrastructure and medical access.
This is Embrace’s mission: to provide a simple, low cost solution to these mothers. To ensure that babies no longer die or get sick because they can’t access an incubator. We want to make sure every premature and low birth weight baby has the warmth of an Embrace, and that every mother has the means to save her children.
It is a profound part of the human spirit to provide hope to our next generation, and this hope starts with the most fragile and inspirational thing in this world: a new life. Join us in providing this hope to millions of parents and babies around the world.