I asked her why.
"I
was scared of Ebola," she said.
This
was back in March. Five months after this area had been declared Ebola free.
"I
didn't have the courage to go for check-ups at the clinic because so many
people died there," she said.
Ms
Soumah told me she felt the baby moving in her tummy right up to the end.
"The
baby just got too tired," she said with a blank look in her eyes.
"It
was born dead."
Avoiding vaccinations
She
is not the only pregnant woman who was too scared to go to hospital.
More
than half a dozen women, cradling tiny babies in their laps, patiently waited
outside the village chief's hut in Kalemodiagbe village to speak to me.
Everyone
had a story to tell.
One
was Ms Soumah's sister-in-law. M'mah Camara still refuses to take her baby to
hospital to get vaccinated.
Like
Ms Soumah, she also spent three days at home in labour, refusing to visit a
doctor or a midwife.
Unlike
Ms Soumah, her baby survived.
She
gently tightened a green towel around her two-month-old baby.
The
27-year-old lost 13 members of her family to Ebola, including her husband.
After
he died, following local traditions, she married his brother; the father of her
baby.
"During
Ebola people left to go to the clinic but they never came back. I'm scared to
go now in case I don't come back," she said.
Nobody came back alive
It's
the same story for the other new mothers and pregnant women in the village.
Even
after Ms Soumah's horrifying experience, the fear of Ebola seems to outweigh
the fear of anything else.
Fatoumata
Camara is seven months pregnant but has no intention of using the healthcare
system.
"Since
my friend lost her baby, I'm scared of the birth but I don't have the courage
to go to the clinic," she told me.
Her
own mum, brother and mother-in-law all died of Ebola.
Source:
BBC
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