We are very proud that Princess Sarah Zeid – an ambassador for mother and child health – chose to highlight Kit Yamoyo in her speech at the Every Woman Every Child (EWEC) reception at the UN General Assembly this week (24/9/13). This is what she said courtesy of ColaLife’s Rohit Ramchandani who was at the reception:
This is why Princess Zeid is an ambassador for mother and child health:
My husband, Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad, is the Jordanian ambassador to the United States and Mexico. While in Washington, I became pregnant with our third child, a little girl whom we called Azziza. I had a very normal and happily uneventful pregnancy, and at 39 weeks arrived at the hospital with my husband expecting to have a very normal and uneventful Cesarean Section.
Shortly after our girl was delivered, I suffered from an amniotic fluid embolism, which I understand is a rare and catastrophic event. Most women do not survive. I am only alive because I was in an excellent hospital with the very best medical care. I remember much of what happened that day, and have a very vivid picture of my husband standing off to one side of the operating room holding our tiny baby in his arms. He was so happy, and was planning to go home later in the afternoon to bring our two other children, Ra’ad and Hala to the hospital to meet their little sister. That I would die and leave him to raise our children without their mother was, and still is, unthinkable. Yet this is the brutal reality for so many mothers, husbands and children worldwide.
After this incident, I asked myself: How can I be part of this extraordinary movement to ensure that no woman should die giving life to a child? Mothers are the heart of every family, and crucial to the survival, well being and happiness of husbands and children everywhere.
I first learned about the White Ribbon Alliance when I heard Sarah Brown speaking passionately and eloquently about the organisation, and why the fight for women’s reproductive health is so very important.
Soon afterward, I arrived in Theresa Shaver’s (founder and director of the White Ribbon Alliance) office with my background, my story and a wish to do anything I could to help.
