Chloe Cobb
Chloe's Snowdon Challenge page
Fundraising for Freedom From Fistula Foundation
Story
On the 7th April me and my amazing (perhaps delusional) team mates will be hiking Snowdon carrying a full term weight pregnancy strapped to our tummies!
This is all in aid of FREEDOM FROM FISTULA. This is an amazing charity that offers gestational healthcare and support to women in Africa. It offers emergency care for fistulas as a result of obstetric trauma. A fistula is a complication of obstructed childbirth that leaves these poor ladies with gaps from their bladder or rectum to their birth canal leading to incontinence and constant agonising pain (which they would otherwise have to live with for up to 40 years!)
This leaves them exiled from their communities and alienated from their husbands, friends and families, leaving them completely alone. In the UK full mental and physical healthcare support throughout pregnancy and childbirth is a standard guaranteed. In Africa, these women endure week long labours and some have to walk miles to their nearest hospital to then still have a 9 in 10 chance that the baby will not survive.
FREEDOM FROM FISTULA offers women emergency healthcare throughout their labour, repairs their fistulas surgically and offers psychological support after the experience. Furthermore, the charity teaches the women basic skills that enable them to return home to their communities and provide for themselves and their new family member.
There is nothing more empowering than reading the stories yourself at: http://freedomfromfistula.org.uk/about-us/stories
Please consider donating to this worthy cause to offer these women and mothers a service that we all have free access to in the UK. My team and I really believe in the charity and want these women to be in the best environment to bring their children into the world.