A mother brought her baby in for a newborn check up as per usual. However during the check up, the baby showed high levels of jaundice and has to urgently go back to the hospital for phototherapy.
The mother tried pleading for other options, but it was a firm instruction from our doctor. There and then you can see she understood what needed to be done but struggled to accept that she had to bring her baby back to the hospital—maybe its the residual trauma of an emergency c-sect birth, the fear of not being able to pay the hospital bills because she already had outstanding debts or the hormones overplaying things, but what she felt is not uncommon.
As a mother, I saw and felt the pain of bringing her child back to hospital again. I couldn’t do much but reassure her that it will be all okay and she had to be strong for him. She cried leaving the clinic that day.
The following week, we received news that the baby's condition had improved and the jaundice levels had subsided. The next time that we saw the baby at the clinic was for his routine vaccination appointment. The mother came in happy, holding her healthy baby boy.
(Pictured: Third from left, the mother and her baby in The First 1,000 Days Project, along with her sponsors and an Autrui Global staff.)
No one likes going through hardships, and some of us face more than others. Yet tough times never last, tough people do. For any mother struggling through the jaundice blues or other rough patches, know that this too shall pass.
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