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Woman says she is mocked for not having children
MONIKA Hamutenya (63) from Windhoek’s Okahandja Park informal settlement says she has been yearning to be a mother all her life.
Apart from many children she has raised, the child who has lived with her the longest is her late sister’s daughter.
“Some people say those who haven’t given birth should be quiet when those who have are speaking,” she says.
“I have begged God for one child only, even if it is disabled,” she says.
Hamutenya has never had her own child, and says she is often mocked about this.
“They make my pain worse. And seeing other women receiving gifts from their children, especially during Christmas, while I receive nothing, is heartbreaking,” she says.
Hamutenya says she had a miscarriage when she was 25 years old.
“I was never diagnosed as being infertile, but I waited and tried for too long, yet no baby has made it to my womb.
“I have felt hopeless. I was told during a Pap smear that my womb is too old.”
Hamutenya says some childless women become desperate and resort to consulting self-proclaimed traditional healers to fall pregnant.
“I am urging women in the same position as me to be strong and to remain patient,” she says.
Hamutenya says she moved to Windhoek before independence and used to work as a domestic worker.
At the time of her miscarriage, she says she was grateful that she had a supportive partner.
“People should educate themselves and stop the stigma around those who are battling to fall pregnant. We should support those newly-weds and stop pressuring them, asking them when the baby is coming.
“Be kind, because people are going through a lot,” she says.
The pensioner says she accommodates four relatives on her social grant of N$1 300.
10% OF ALL PREGNANCIES
Ondangwa-based general practitioner Dr Sydney Mukondomi says miscarriage affects 10% of all pregnancies, and is likely to happen in the first three months of pregnancy.
“Miscarriages are due to several factors, with the majority caused by how fertilisation takes place. Those factors are very difficult to determine.”
Some are caused by medical or gynecological conditions, he says.
If a woman suffers a miscarriage, she should have an individual assessment done to determine the cause, Mukondomi says.
Consistency in follow-ups is also important, he says.
He says with advancements in the field of fertility it is possible to get pregnant.
Mukondomi says infertility can be defined as either primary or secondary.
Primary infertility involves that a woman has never fallen pregnant, and secondary infertility involves being sexually active for one year without taking a contraceptive and not falling pregnant.
The chances of getting pregnant reduces from the age of 36. Women under this age who struggle to fall pregnant should seek medical help, he says.
‘CAUSE FOR CONCERN’
First lady Monica Geingos says the stigma around infertility is a cause for concern, especially since some women are rejected by their partners due to being infertile.
She says couples and individuals struggling to conceive often carry the burden of having to fund infertility treatment. The president of the Fertility Society of Ghana, Dr Edem Hiadzi, says fertility does not only affect women, but men too
“In sub-Saharan Africa, sexually transmitted infections, especially gonorrhoea and chlamydia, account for a significant number of cases of male infertility.”
He says causes of infertility are attributed to men in 40% of cases, 40% to women, and in 15% of cases to both men and women.
In 5% of infertility cases the cause is unexplained, he says.
“Men should support partners who are not falling pregnant, as fertility is a shared responsibility, and should not be stigmatised. Don’t blame the woman, unless you check yourself and consult your doctor first,” Hiadzi says.
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