Supporting Women through Crisis Pregnancy

Thanks to your support, we are able to help more women than ever before. Our offices in Phnom Penh and Battambang have been busy looking after 83 women, and 31 babies. 

One the main features of our program is providing baby baskets to women who wouldn't be able to purchase items essential to their health and their baby's well-being. Our baby baskets are just one aspect of our program, as we also visit regularly to ensure our beneficiaries physical and mental health.

Donating to Mother's Heart will make a significant difference to the life a single mother, by ensuring her health, and provided the best start in life to a child, who would have been born in extreme poverty, and possibly been taken away from a loving mother. You can gift them with the chance to bond, create a nest of tenderness, and keep them healthy and strong.

Sophy* and her child Neary* are benefitting from our Pregnancy Support Program.

Sophy arrived in our offices one morning. Her eyes were sad and her chin lowered to her chest. She wouldn't look any of us in the eyes. 

She realised she was pregnant a month before our meeting. In Cambodia, reproduction is a great taboo. And she always thought that she would only get pregnant when married. No one had ever told her, and the shock of her pregnancy left her depressed, full of shame, and deeply isolated. 

She told one of her friend, who saw how withdrawn she was, and they both reached to us. 

Sophy's pregnancy went well, but when her family found out, they cut all ties with her. We started family mediation, but it takes time, and we needed to find a safe place for Sophy.

We took her in our Mothers' Home where she met other moms, some pregnant, some with children. They helped each other, and watching her housemates interact with children, took her fear of motherhood away. Our midwife made regular visits making sure the pregnancy was going well, and getting Sophy prepared for delivery. Neary was born two months ago. She is lovely baby girl, with beautiful dark eyes and a lovely smile. Her skin is fair, which makes her mother very proud!

After delivery, we provided Sophy with a baby basket that included every item a mother and her newborn need for the first 6 weeks. Inside her basket, Sophy found hygiene essentials for herself and her baby, a mosquito net (as mosquitoes can carry deadly diseases in Cambodia), etc. We also provide regular visits from our midwife, parenting classes, and the support every mother needs after pregnancy.

 Keeping Sophy in good health was paramount to having her beautiful baby boy in top health. We are also training our staff to see signs of postpartum depression. Women in our Pregnancy Support Program are particularly vulnerable to depression. Being single, they face the hardship of parenthood alone, and society rejects them. Monitoring their progress, their health, and providing them with a safe place to talk is one of our main goals.

Thanks to your support, Sophy has become an empowered young mother, and is determined to give her daughter Neary a great future. Neary is in great health, and we will continue to monitor their progress for the next year.

*Names have been changed to respect our beneficiaries right to anonymity.

The phrase is a common one - "It takes a village to raise a child." So common that if I only say "It takes a village" in your head you will finish with "To raise a child."

Cultures of the West may not understand the deep meaning to these words. They may understand that raising a child is a collaborative effort, but not have experienced personally, just how collaborative this can be.

In Cambodia, so much of a person’s identity is based on who their family is and their role in the family.

To be without family is to have very little value and identity.

Because of this, MHO as a very strong focus on strengthening family bonds and rectifying broken family relationships. And we’ve had success.

Here is one of those success stories.

Sophy stood on a bridge, looking down. Hopelessness and desperation had brought her here. She wore loose clothes to disguise the reason she was there. When she first found out she was pregnant, she couldn’t believe it was true. She knew she had to tell her boyfriend. When he found out he was in as much shock as she was. They sat in silence. They made plans to see each other the next day but he didn’t show up. She waited. Then she called. The phone rang and rang. No answer. She called every day. By next week a message came across the wires that the phone number was no longer valid. He had left her. She was unmarried, would soon loose her job, and didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t stand the thought of telling her parents – they would be so ashamed of her. The neighbors would gossip. Her father had a heart condition, she didn’t think he would survive the loss of face and disgrace. For a month the question, “what will I do?,” went round and round in her head. Until it brought her to the bridge. It had all become too much to bare.

Sophy, standing on that bridge, needed help. She needed somewhere safe to go. She needed her village of support and care. By some miracle a moto taxi driver brought her to MHO. I still don’t know how he knew about us. MHO supported her with medical care. We offered her counseling and were there with her through the crisis. Our staff were even with her in the delivery room because she had no family there and they were the first to congratulate her on becoming a mom. MHO was the child’s first village.

But an organization is not family. She needed her parents. Her baby needed family. Once the baby was borne, slowly we helped her rebuild relationship with her parents. It took time, but finally, they invited her back home. Their love for her was stronger than fear of shame. And so the child’s village grew.

As supporters and donors, you are part of this village as well. You may not know the names and faces of the children you help, but you are a part of their village, helping to mold and shape them.