Honor Your Mother

New Imagine No Malaria Field Coordinators on our tour of
United Methodist Communications during training

This week I'm at Field Coordinator Training in Nashville with colleagues from eight other annual conferences who are just starting their journey with Imagine No Malaria. As we dive deep into the facts and stories of this extraordinary effort to reduce preventable malaria deaths in Africa, we spend a lot of time talking about the impact of this initiative on families. Statistically, 85% of those who die from malaria are children under 5 years old. That's a statistic that is made even more compelling when we see the photos of infants, toddlers, and preschool-age kids in Africa who are actually suffering from, or have survived in spite of, malaria.

But the other demographic group that is vulnerable to malaria is pregnant women.  The CDC identifies the risks:

Adults who have survived repeated malaria infections throughout their lifetimes may become partially immune to severe or fatal malaria. However, because of the changes in women’s immune systems during pregnancy and the presence of a new organ (the placenta) with new places for parasites to bind, pregnant women lose some of their immunity to malaria infection.

Malaria infection during pregnancy can have adverse effects on both mother and fetus, including maternal anemia, fetal loss, premature delivery, intrauterine growth retardation, and delivery of low birth-weight infants (<2500 g or <5.5 pounds), a risk factor for death.

It is a particular problem for women in their first and second pregnancies and for women who are HIV-positive.

And the drugs most commonly used to treat malaria carry the risk of stillbirth.

Jennifer Long is a Field Co-
Coordinator in Missouri

One of the new Field Coordinators here in Nashville with me is a mom and seminary student from Missouri. Jennifer Long contracted malaria unknowingly while on a mission trip to Honduras nearly 8 years ago, and did not get diagnosed until nine months after she returned - when she was four months pregnant with her fourth child. 

Although the diagnosis of malaria was unusual in the midwest, and so took longer than it might in an area where more people experience the disease, Jennifer was fortunate to have access to excellent health care, and her baby was born healthy. But she was devastated by the thought that as she held her beautiful, healthy baby boy, some three thousand mothers were watching their babies die. And all because she was in the U.S., while those other mothers were not. Jennifer has been raising funds through Nothing But Nets throughout her son's life to honor those 3,000 moms, and now is joining the Imagine No Malaria team in the hope that someday, no mother will have to mourn the death of her child due to malaria.

http://www.imaginenomalaria.org/sharethelove/

Today, the number of people who die from malaria has decreased nearly 50% over the statistics from 9 years ago. But approximately fourteen hundred mothers still mourn each day as they watch their children die from malaria. One in five children born in sub-Saharan Africa will die before their fifth birthday, and other families will mourn the loss of a mother.

As Mother's Day approaches next month, we invite you to honor your mother or a maternal figure in your life by making a gift in her honor to Imagine No Malaria. Visit the Share the Love page at the Imagine No Malaria website for Mother's Day resources such as prayers, poems, an inspiring video, and related articles. You can also order Mother's Day cards that let a mother in your life known that you helped save the life of a mother or child in Africa in her name.