Born just weeks ago in Kenya, Faith is a beautiful baby girl who has needed specialized medical care since birth. “Her siblings were eagerly waiting to meet her,” says Faith’s mother. “Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to go home.”
Faith was born with spina bifida, a birth defect characterized by the incomplete closure of the backbone and membranes around the spinal cord. “Faith has a leaking mass on her lower back,” explains our medical partner, African Mission Healthcare Foundation (AMHF). “Faith is at a risk of getting severe infection and developing a tethered cord that can lead to either scoliosis and/or kyphosis (abnormal twisting/curvature of the spine). She is also at a risk of lower limb paralysis.”
Faith’s mother, a subsistence farmer, and her father, a day laborer in construction, live with their children in a one-room rental house. They cannot raise enough money to pay for medical care for their infant daughter.
With $805 in funding, Faith can undergo spina bifida closure, a surgical procedure in which doctors place the spinal cord and nerves back inside the backbone and cover them with membranes before closing the opening on Faith’s back. Funding for Faith’s treatment also pays for five days of hospital care and three days of physical therapy.
“Any help accorded towards Faith’s treatment will be a great blessing to us,” says Faith’s mother.