By Kamelia Tzeneva | Project Lead
This time around we are excited to share with you a personal story – a story which illustrates how your long-term commitment as donors enables us to, in turn, support the moms and pregnant women whom we work with. Your help is invaluable to us – we hope that you will feel this when reading about the growth and successful parenting of only one of many families our team supports.
The proud parents in the photo are Fanny and Mitko, and they are holding their most precious - eight-month-old Yoni.
Fanny is 20 years old, from Sofia. She has been meeting with the home-visiting nurse Nellie from the Sofia-based team of Nurse-Family Partnership since the fourth month of her pregnancy. Complications towards the end of her pregnancy made this period extremely stressful for Fanny - and that's when Nellie's support proved even more valuable to her. Yoni was born underweight and both he and Fanny spent the first two weeks after the birth in hospital, where Nellie visited them regularly. After they were discharged, Yoni quickly began gaining weight and catching up with his peers, now weighing the impressive 8 kg!
About her involvement in the program, Fanny says it has been extremely beneficial and helped her gain confidence in her parenting skills. Nellie, on the other hand, says with a smile that Fanny is very inquisitive, reads the materials with interest and applies what she has learned in her everyday care for little Yoni. Currently, one of the topics Fanny and Nellie are discussing is proper feeding and foods that are appropriate for each stage of Yoni's development. Yoni readily accepts the new meals - sweet milk with bread and cheese, a traditional Bulgarian breakfast, and different soups, which he visibly enjoys.
"Yoni is an endlessly curious, energetic and clever baby", says Nelly as he coos on her lap and keeps exploring the world around him with his eyes wide open.
Fanny dreams of securing a good future for Yoni, and when he grows up a little, she would like to go back to high school herself and graduate, opening opportunities for her own future as well.
Fanny and Yoni’s story is just one of many which proves that the long-term professional support which our nurses and midwives provide can transform the experience of motherhood and parenting. Our devoted teams’ work helps families provide the stable ground on which they can then build on and provide successful futures for their children.
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