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page title: field Stories

Project Concern International, Guatemala

PCI would like to share the story of Margarita Lopez, a Casa Materna patient who first visited the Casa at the referral of a local midwife who originally thought that Margarita was expecting twins. Margarita, a 26 year old woman from Chiantla, arrived at the Casa Materna, looking for help, depressed, worried, and overwhelmed.

Margarita is a single mother of a four year old, and recently had been raped by her brother-in-law, “a very bad and dangerous man” in her own words. The incident resulted in a pregnancy of triplets. Margarita was accepted at Casa Materna where she spent the last two months of her pregnancy until her cesarean was scheduled at the National Hospital located next door. At Casa Materna, she received all the care and attention that her case warranted and was carefully monitored by the Casa staff that planned and followed through her cesarean with the Hospital staff. The newborn girls, Clara Luz, Clara Elizabeth and Clarisa were born weighing less than two pounds each and one of them had a serious renal deficiency that put her life at risk. As Margarita recovered from her operation, she returned to Casa Materna, going back a few times a day to the hospital to breastfeed and care for her premature babies. The medicine prescribed for the baby born with complications was subsidized by Casa Materna thanks to the support of the Izumi Foundation. The story of Maragarita and her triplets would not have had a happy ending without the support they received from PCI through Casa Materna. It is a self-confident and hopeful Margarita who eventually returned home with her new bundle consisting of three frail, yet smiling little girls with the utmost desire to keep fighting for their precious lives.

Click to read a copy of a newspaper article reporting on the case of the triplets at Casa Materna. The success of this story is directly attributable to the BIRTH program, thanks to the support of the Izumi Foundation.