From the Anne Geddes Collection...I love her work (posters, photos, diaries, plush toys etc)...Anyone know of shops selling them in Malaysia, do inform me!
Today I want to share with you a story I learnt while volunteering in the Neonates Ward in the hospital...
During my two week break a while back, I went back to the hospital to volunteer...Somehow, being away, makes me miss those little kuti babies =)
In one of the nurseries, I saw two identical babies in cots side-by-side...Above their heads, their BHT's (Bed-Head-Ticket) were labelled 'Twin One' and 'Twin Two'...
Twins!
I was busy cooing at them when one of the twins put his tongue out at me, and broke into a grin...Now, from my very little experience, I knew this was definitely not a newborn, because newborns don't stick their tongue out at you, and they don't mimic facial expressions...
True enough, I checked and they were slightly over two months old...
So, why were they still in the nursery? After all, they were not jaundiced, and they were feeding well, and they looked like they were growing just fine! And both twins still in the hospital???
And then the nurses told me the story...
Their mother, a teacher, was a first-time mother...And she was suffering from postnatal-depression...
She refused to take the babies home, and she said (according to the nurses) she wanted to give her babies up because she can't cope...In the first few days, she even refused to touch her babies...
To be honest, I don't even remember what race they were...After all, I see so many babies and twins, and having no names yet, it is harder to remember them individually...Anyway, their race was immaterial...It was their story that caught my eye...
The nurses told me the pakar of the ward had stated she wasn't going to release the babies until the mother was ready...In the meantime, the mother was being given counselling, and the nurses were helping her to become more in-tuned with her maternal instincts...
Think all babies are like cartoon-figured who feed themselves? Nope! You gotta hold them properly, feed them, burp them...
Like teaching her how to cuddle her babies (twins are usually born much smaller than other babies), breastfeed them, clean them, dress them and teaching her how to communicate with them...
I came back and told my mum about the babies, and how their own mother said she did not want them...
In retrospect, I realised that postnatal depression is a very real thing...There are still many stigmas attached to it, but really, it can strike just about anyone, regardless of race or background...
Many people sometimes think it only affects those very young mothers, or those who are 'uneducated', or those who have babies out-of-wedlock, and the list goes on...
But the truth is, it can happen to anyone! This lady was a lady in her thirties, with a loving husband (or so I was told), and she was already financially secure...She is an educated lady, who taught Chemistry in High School (again, so I was told)...
*Note: When I returned to the hospital a month later, the babies had been discharged and last I heard, mum and babies are doing well!*
Anyway, imagine...
It's your first baby, and suddenly you realise you are getting two, instead of one! And suddenly, you realise you weren't all that ready to be a mother after all...
If you've never bathed a newborn before, it can be scary...
I learnt that we, as a society can do so much to help them...And maybe if we did, we wouldn't see so many babies being dumped and abandoned...Just because their mothers were probably not ready to raise little babies on their own!
But what happens when a baby gets dumped? We point fingers and we assume things (hey, I won't lie and be holy-moly...I've done it):-
Oh, not married lar!
Oh, not responsible lar!
Oh, no heart lar!
But did we think that maybe, just maybe, these mothers were suffering from depression? Maybe they were overwhelmed? Maybe they weren't getting the support they needed from their spouses, friends and family? Incidentally, don't their spouses share a portion of the 'blame'?!?
I am just thinking, if we only had doctors and nurses who took it upon themselves to help these mothers...If we only had (more) NGO's and volunteers who would reach out and help these mothers come to terms with the birth, the struggles that come with it, and to help these mothers look beyond their own short-comings, and embrace motherhood...
Motherhood is a very big journey...A simple thing like changing a diaper may be very difficult for someone who has never done so...Throw that in with the fact that some children are born so tiny, they are only a a kilo or two! How do you expect a lady to change her baby if she is not sure how to carry the child in the first place!

Aren't some babies tiny?
I can carry an premmie-infant as small as 1 kilo (about the size of my palm), and tiub-feed, change, dress and clean the little darling...
But I didn't always start out like that...I had to learn...I needed people to teach me, and to give me the assurance that I was doing the right thing...
Which is why we need more people who would do the right thing, and stop pointing fingers...The nurses and doctors of the neonatal ward are a shining example of compassionate human beings, and responsible ones too...*Clap Clap*
They could have said: "Pah! Your baby, your problem! We have newborns to worry about"...
But they didn't...
Maybe we can all do something too...
Doesn't have to be much...
We can offer to do baby's laundry!
For example, we could offer to show a neighbour who is a first-time mum how to bathe her child...We could give the new-mother a few hours of rest by offering to babysit for a while...We could help by helping the new-mother to do the laundry...At least, until she gets the 'hang' of it...=)
It is just to remind these mothers that they are not alone, and that help is available...
Of course, that is just me...
What do you think?
Note: All photos were taken from the web...No photography is allowed in the Neonate Wards, as children and infants have rights too!