A New York Times article on pregnancy and mortality in Africa.
Not a call to action or any sort of guilt trip; it just stuck with me after I read her story–making my chest tight and giving me that vague sense of sadness you get when someone you’ve never met suffers something unimaginable.
*
Prudence Lemokouno was lying motionless on a bed in the bleak hospital here, her stomach swelled with a fetus that had just died, her eyes occasionally flickering with fright but mostly dull and empty.
Dr. Pascal Pipi, the lone doctor in the public hospital, said she had a few more hours to live, and then she would join the half-million women a year who die around the world in pregnancy and childbirth.
Her husband, Alain Awona, was beside himself. ‘Save my wife,’ he pleaded. “My baby is dead. Save my wife…” {continue reading Save My Wife}
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Thank you to Becca for sharing.
oh man.
the tightness…
Thank you.
This made me so angry.
That is heartbreaking.
It’s just so ridiculous and outrageous. God’s will?!? If that’s God’s will, I don’t want to know that God.
Such an impacting article. Thank you for sharing. It pairs poignantly with this article about the importance of birth control and obstetrics for women in the developing world: http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/melinda-gates-answers-questions-part-ii/?scp=2&sq=melinda%20gates&st=cse. The quote that gets me from the Prudence article is, “In much of the world, the most dangerous thing a woman can do is to become pregnant.”
So sad. I wish we knew what happened to her…
It makes me think of how blessed we are here. Even a hundred years ago in this country, childbirth was the most dangerous thing a woman could do.
Thank you for sharing this. In our developed country people don’t like to be confronted with the realities of the third world. I think it is important to learn about those things not only to make us realize how blessed we are but also to get us off our butts and help. It’s a crime against humanity that politics keeps people from getting nutritious food and medical treatment. Do you know if there was a follow up article?
Tight.
You weren’t kidding about the article being something that just stuck with you. I couldn’t resist looking to see if there was more to the story. I found this blog that discusses personal views on people, places, issues and events in Cameroon, Africa. There were two follow up articles to ‘Save my Wife’… here are the links… the second article – http://www.dibussi.com/2006/09/save_my_wife_2_.html
and then the third article – http://www.dibussi.com/2006/09/post_1.html
… seriously, I’m with Becca and that quote she shared at the end of her response. so sad.
Thank you.
Thank you for writing about this topic. It has become something close to my own heart over the last two years as I could have been that women except for the crazy luck I had at being born in a country that had the resources to save my life. My son died shortly after he was born and I could have easily gone with him had there not been medical intervention. I can never look at pregnancy in the same way again. Before I personally experienced it I was totally ignorant of the fact that for many women pregnancy is a gamble with their own health. So very sad and largely preventable as well.
Brianna, thanks so much for writing. What a life-altering and tragic experience. My heart breaks for your loss. You are a strong woman.
I can’t believe women around the world die from such a preventable problem. It’s so easy to forget about them in our bubble here in the US. When I read this story, it really tugged at my heart and reminded me how important it is to stay conscious and aware of others’ suffering and our own privileges.