Janet Mbugua Does Something Special For Mothers Who Have Lost Their Babies

Citizen TV mews anchor, Janet Mbugua has been on the forefront of championing women initiatives. It is for this reason that she hooked up with the founder of Still A Mum, an organisation that that supports women and families dealing with miscarriages, stillbirth and infant loss.

Still A Mum comes from a desire to celebrate women who have lost babies and affirm them that they are still mothers despite their loss. In the African culture, a woman’s worth is usually attached to her ability to be a mother, reads the website’s description of the issue. This means that any woman who cannot get children for one reason or another is regarded as less of a woman. She is judged and often socially segregated. In some societies, women who are unable to bear children are considered bewitched. In some cases, in-laws ultimately look for a child-bearing woman as a replacement for their son.

Read what Janet Mbugua wrote on her weekly mummy blog.

“When I reached out to Wanjiru Kihusa, founder of Still A Mum, a non-profit organisation established in 2015 to support women and families dealing with miscarriages, stillbirth and infant loss, I was taken in by the passion and purpose for the work she does. Along with Sharon who accompanied her on Monday Special and who shared her deeply moving story, they shed light on a somewhat muted subject; infant loss.
It is estimated that in Africa, a staggering 4.2 million miscarriages are reported every year. Studies also show that 1 in 100 women will experience recurrent miscarriages (three or more successive miscarriages).
There are numerous reasons given for this, from complications that arise during birth to neglect at the hands of specialists.Whatever the case, it’s an unimaginable loss suffered and many women struggle to live with it.
There’s concerns over how the news is broken to them, with Wanjiru telling me that nurses in certain hospitals in Kenya very matter-of-factly relay the news that one’s little angel is no more. On top of that, there’s no psycho-social support offered in these hospitals so a mother is left to deal with the loss the best way she knows how. This is unfair and shouldn’t be the case.
Can we all rise and stand with these women? Stand with their partners and their support groups to offer our encouragement and let them know they are still mums?
Janet hosted Wanjiru on my Twitter chat on September 8th, from 6 pm to talk about the issue.