The city of Johannesburg is full of cheap, fast, abortions signs. Everywhere you look you can always spot at least a dozen. Abortions are legal in South Africa but that doesn’t mean they are safe, these sings advertise fast 45 minute abortions where they pretty much bring you into a not safe, unsterile place and fill you up with such strong drugs that sometimes the mother dies as well as the child. The poverty rate here is so incredibly high and that reflects that abortion rates. Mothers here are getting pregnant at very young ages and financially cannot support a child or doesn’t know how to care for one. When a mother has a baby here the baby needs to be looked at and accepted by the father’s family and if it is rejected the mother will usually abandon the baby in a nearby trashcan or river. The community that I have been recently been working in had found an abandoned baby this past week and when I heard the news it completely broke my heart. I couldn’t ever think about doing something like that but in reverse I have to think, I don’t know this mother, I don’t know her life and what was going through her head at that exact moment. The abandoned baby rate in Johannesburg is so high, its about 4 babies being abandoned a day. The horrific stories that I have heard about some babies here is just so awful. I was recently told about a hospital whose plumbing was getting backed up and they hired an outside company to come and check it out. After doing a lot of investigating they found out what the problem was, it was the babies. These plumbers pulled baby after baby out of those hospital pipes, when they brought it up to the hospital, they were threatened and blackmailed into keeping quiet. That’s the seriousness of this problem here.
One of my ministries for the month is Impact Baby Rescue. They do such amazing work and are truly making a difference in the communities that they work in. The first thing that they have is a baby safe, a baby safe is a like a mailbox that opens and then locks on one end on the outside of a building and it’s a place that a mother can safely abandon her baby. Once a baby is placed in the box, the workers will be immediately notified. The ministry will take that baby and make sure it is safe and then fill out the police reports and then place the baby in their baby home. The baby home is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a home with the abandoned babies that they receive. They have a 24-hour staff that takes care of them and keeps them throughout the adoption process. Impact Baby Rescue even works with moms before they even have a baby. They do counseling before and after birth whenever it is needed, they work with moms and teach them how to be a mother and help them with the stresses with being a mother, and they even work with them setting their child up for adoption if that is what they wish. Part of our team was able to go to clinics and talk with people and give presentations on the resources they have with their unborn and born babies and just encourage them and pray for them.
My team had the joy of going to one of the hospitals with baby bags as gifts for all the new moms that were being discharged that day. These bags were packed full with things like outfits, diapers, knitted blankets, soaps, hats, and a lot more. When we walked into the maternity ward, we had about 15 moms sitting in the common room with their babies awaiting our arrival. Each mom was sitting in the robes they brought and the babies were laying in their basinets with a diaper on, wrapped in a towel. Each mom was so excited to receive our gifts. Most of these babies would have gone home in just a diaper and towel because they didn’t have any clothes for them, so we helped the moms dress their babies. The first mom I went and got to know what was 17 years old and this was her first baby, I helped her dress her baby because she told me she had never dressed a baby before and she was so excited to dress her all cute in a new onesie and pants and wrap her up in her new blanket. After getting all the babies dressed and settled down we got to sit with the moms and get to know them and pray for them. This was by far my absolute favorite ministry of the month this far. I don’t have children myself, but I felt that I could share love with these women and encourage them and tell them that they aren’t alone in this process and there’s always help if they need it. After that myself and one other teammate were able to go to the kangaroo room and we talked with a mom with twins and a mom with and very premature baby and were able to pray over them as well and give them gifts as well. We also walked past the NICU and it was very large with many babies being taken care off. During this time we learned about how long moms were able to stay in the hospital after given birth and the hospital we were at, the moms stay for one day and if they have a c section they get to stay up to three days. Then we learned that in Cape Town after giving birth you are kicked out 6 hours after giving birth. This is so frustrating and sad for me because a mother needs so much more support than 6 hours, especially if they are new moms and don’t know what they are doing. Just all around women’s health care is not amazing in South Africa but Impact Africa is trying to take small steps to make it better.
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Much love,
Brieanne
