(Left to right) Rita Amorim, Maria Sa da Bandeira and Christian Kimont
In response to the lack of maternity support in the city, and to enable access to comprehensive maternity education services, two mothers started a consulting service named “Moms – Macau Maternity Support” in September last year.
The initiative is led by Maria Sá da Bandeira, a child routine and sleep consultant, and Rita Amorim, a clinical psychologist. The two women came together after experiencing the lack of support from the community during their own experiences of pregnancy and child-birth.
“Moms started with our own personal experiences which is of the lack of support during pregnancy and maternity. […] Both of us felt a great lack of support, a huge lack of support,” Maria told the Times.
With both wanting to contribute to change in the community, they educated themselves by completing certificates and training courses.
“The first idea that came up was to create a pre-natal class as its core service. And from there, understanding the needs, talking to our clients and looking into our own experience, we started building our own services as well,” Maria said.
Currently, “Moms” core services are pre-natal classes, psychological support during pregnancy and post-partum advice on routines and baby sleep. In addition, it has undertaken several collaborations with local residents and expatriates who have related expertise.
“We’re slowly building our way up. We didn’t have the expertise we needed […] so we looked around for people who did,” Maria explained.
The consulting service now has between 20 and 25 clients. Its managers say that they see a great advantage in providing “emotional and logistical support” to couples who do not have their families nearby. The primary client base is Portuguese and other expatriates.
“The majority of these people have no families around to give support. And they feel lost, [with] no information and alone, they need some support. And I think we’re providing a good service for these kinds of people.”
“Moms” is also set to organize a workshop on “early screening of developmental delays” on April 2.
A Portuguese education expert has been invited to attend in honor of the first session of the new activity, “Listen, Share and Learn” which targets parents, primary caregivers, and educators. The purpose of these workshops is to encourage these people to learn, share, and ask questions on a variety of topics related to early childcare.
Moreover, the organization will launch its “Play, Share and Learn,” with a talk titled “Gut Health in Children” on April 9.
“Now we have started a new activity […] where we call mothers and babies to come and share about one specific topic that we choose. So each month is a different topic, and they share with an expert,” explained Maria.
The organization believes that by educating their clients to parent in the most effective way, it will help reduce “emotional stress” in households.
Meanwhile, Rita claimed that local hospitals do not organize groups that start from the “beginning till the end” of pregnancy. Though there are talks on breastfeeding, it only caters to Chinese-speaking mothers-to-be.
Christina Kimont, a birth doula [i.e. a person trained and experienced in childbirth], who also provides services to “Moms’” clients, strongly supports breastfeeding. Kimont added that there is a definite absence of any “support network” for women who wish to breastfeed.
“I strongly believe in supporting breastfeeding. I know that’s something continuing to be more valued in this culture and community here but there isn’t yet the support network to help women breastfeed to the recommendations that they are being given,” Christina revealed.
“So they’re just being told that they should breastfeed but not being told how to maintain it. There are significant emotional and health impacts that come along with long-term breastfeeding,” she added.
“Moms” also believes that the government should be involved and encourage the setting up of ‘comfortable’ and ‘friendly’ spaces for women to breastfeed.
“What we feel is important is for places in Macau to be ready to have private areas for ladies to be able to breastfeed […] even in the public hospitals. For example in the pediatricians’ [clinic], you have a very uncomfortable room,” said Maria. Staff reporter
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