Maternal Mortality in Sierra Leone: The Story of Mamma is a collection of photos and captions that tell the tragic story of the death of Mamma Sessay, an 18-year old who lost her life giving birth in Sierra Leone, a country with one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world.
The captions on the photos explain that Mamma was forced to marry at age 14 and first gave birth when she was 15. At the age of 18, she gave birth to the first of a pair of twins and then her contractions stopped…
View the photo essay here.
Never have i felt so pained before..:’(..nobody should ever have to endure that
When i saw the pictures my heart just broke. I am a mother too and besides having to endure the pain that mamma did, she will never know what her babies feel like in her arms, how they smell or look when they are sleeping. I am deeply hurt by all this but thank the photographer for showing the realities of what other women have to endure in other parts of the world.
For many women around the world becoming a mother is a lifetime achievement. However, in some parts of the world like in Africa and parts of Asia, this achievement comes with a lot of sacrifices from health complications to deaths. In some countries, women have to walk over 10miles to reach the nearest health centres which are at times ill equipped to meet the requirements of child birth operations. It’s very shaming that it is in such countries that corruption is endemic and often such unsympathetic leaders go unchecked for their roles in denying their people the basic needs in life. United as we can be, allowing this to continue under our watchful eyes is as scandalous as the corrupt leaders themselves. We the men and women who have had the chance to survive and live to this day should now come out together and find ways of helping the most vulnerable and dispossessed of our sisters in these parts. Child and maternal deaths should not be allowed to increase but only eradicated. This should be the overwhelming call to all of to act and put an end to this grotesque plague.