Nepal: Parvati has healthy babies now

By: Sunjuli Kunwar, Communications; World Vision Nepal

Parvati’s mother-in-law is shooing the flies away from her grandson’s face and body as he sleeps. It is not an unusual sight to see grandmothers taking care of their grandchildren in a Nepalese family. But this little boy is loved even more than most, because the family endured painful losses before he finally arrived.

The family live in Kailali, though Parvati’s husband and brother-in-law are usually far from home working in Pune, India. Parvati, aged 30, has needed to rely on her own resources and knowledge of pregnancy and childcare, with tragic results.

'She relied on her own resources and knowledge of pregnancy and childcare, with tragic results'.

Her first daughter was just three months old when she died from a rapid fever. Parvati was home with her baby but did not know the signs of a serious illness, and let the baby sleep while she went about her chores. Later she discovered the child was no more – a very painful moment that she and her family will never forget.

After three years mourning her baby daughter, Parvati fell pregnant again. Unfortunately this time she had a miscarriage in her fourth month, shattering her dreams once more.

After these two tragic incidents, Parvati became worried and distressed, not sure if she would ever have the chance again to be a mother as before. The villagers in her community gave her all sorts of advice- including to eat food grown from the land where she had buried her little daughter. While Parvati’s in-laws saw this as superstition, she had nowhere to turn for more practical advice.

Parvati became pregnant again. This time, anxious and scared, her pregnancy was complicated by her own ill health. She became very weak.

After giving birth to a baby boy at home, she continued to bleed until she fell unconscious. It was only then that her family called a health worker who suggested they should take her to the hospital urgently.

Parvati gained consciousness after three days. She had survived a postpartum haemorrhage and came to know that she was suffering from vitamin A deficiency and anaemia.

Amidst all this, there was some good news - the little boy was well and thriving.

Parvati was very happy to have a baby again after enduring so much pain. Early on in her new adventure, she joined a mothers’ group supported by World Vision with different. Through this group, she finally began to learn about safe motherhood, birth preparedness and other health issues related to pregnancy.

A year later, she became pregnant again, but things were different this time. Parvati had learnt a lot from the trainings thus she started having nutritional foods, went for regular health checkups and delivered her baby, a healthy girl, in the hospital.

“I never knew about what to do and not to do when pregnant before. Probably if I had known about it, I could have saved my first two children. I and my family never knew about the importance of diet and checkups. In my previous pregnancies I never had green vegetables because we were told it’s not good to have, I didn’t even have iron tablets before. I didn’t even know about vaccinations. But during my last pregnancy, I had vegetables, fruits, beans, and I took iron tablets. Now my babies are healthy and they love to eat vegetables and fruits too,” says Parvati.

“We never knew about all these things,” says Parvati’s mother-in-law. “I had all my babies at home. I just feel luck must have been on my side when I think about it now, after I have learned all these things from my daughter-in-law’s generation. I feel if I had also followed all this teaching I would have had healthier babies and many of my friends would not have lost their children like Parvati did. Women are lucky to get all this knowledge, to give birth to healthy children and take care of them well. It’s creating a sense of responsibility among all the family members for the health of mothers and their children – unlike in our times.”

And she looks at her grandchildren with a tender smile.

Also read  “The dreams of new mothers”

Learn more about child health in Nepal HERE.