I have been wanting to watch this documentary for quite some time as it feeds into my heart for the women of Ethiopia. Mark and I took the time a few evenings ago to finally watch it after having it sitting on our TV for close to two weeks. I highly recommend it to any and everyone. You can go to www.fistulafoundation.org to find out more about the documentary and to get educated on this easily fixable problem found in over 100,000 women in Ethiopia alone.
As a result of hard manual labor from a very young age and poor nutrition a lot of Ethiopian girls have very small skeletal structures. One of the problems then that arises is trouble delivering babies naturally without complications and horrible results. One of the girls at the fistula hospital looked about 10 years old when actually she was 18. She was well under 5 feet tall and her story was this: from the age of 2 she carried water strapped to her back and by the age of 8 was carrying more weight than most grown women can manage.
Back to what fistula actually is for those of you who don't know. In under developed countries, such as Ethiopia, there are many things stacked against a women who is preparing for labor and delivery. First of all, if you live in a village it is not feasible to get to a hospital to receive help. Secondly, even if you reach a hospital they are usually so understaffed and ill equipped that you cannot receive adequate help. Thirdly, if you have worked hard and not had proper nutrition the effects are nothing less than tragic. These women have very small pelvic's and so they end up with an obstructed birth. You can be in labor for 5-10 days. The pressure from the babies head bearing down on your cervix cuts off blood supply to vaginal tissue which results in dead tissue. After the baby is born (and they of course do not survive) the woman finds that she is incontinent. The dead tissue in the vaginal lining creates a hole either into the bladder or into the rectum and sometimes both! So...not only do these dear women (women exactly like you and I) loose their child but they are now outcast from society, their husbands and their families. Because they have constant urine or feces leaking down their legs which results in a very foul odor. There is a fairly simple surgical procedure which can reverse the effects for them. But...they cannot afford to have the surgery done.
A wonderful couple went to Ethiopia in 1959 and started a fistula hospital. They do somewhere around 30,000 surgeries a year. The cost of a surgery, post operative care, education on what to do if becoming pregnant again, a new outfit on discharge and their bus fare home is $450.00.
This surgery completely alters the course of their lives. They are given back their dignity and ushered back into society! The one woman they feature on the film was 25 years old and at the age of 19 was in labor for a week and of course developed a fistula tear. Her husband left her and her family kicked her out. She built a small hut at the outskirts of the village where she lived by herself. She said the pain of being alone all the time was enough to make you want to kill yourself. I cried at the end when she returned and was able to dismantle her hut since she would now be welcome in her home again!
I went to bed that night and as I do every night stopped to look at each of my children, pull their blankets up under their chins and give them one more kiss! I stopped at Eden's crib and just started weeping. For different reasons. Knowing that my little girl will be spared this humiliation was one reason. Knowing that there are thousands (more like millions) of little girls in Africa who will have to endure this heartache was another reason. Knowing that there is something I can do to at least help one woman a year was another reason. One woman a year seems so small but when you see the face of a beautiful 17 year old girl who has been given her life back you know to her it means the world to her!!!
So my goal in blogging about this is to raise awareness. Go check out the website I mentioned earlier and think about donating towards a surgery! And if you cannot find the documentary to rent think about purchasing a copy and after watching it share it with others - raise awareness!! We can make a difference!!
No comments:
Post a Comment