Mother’s and children are special to the world. Children are carried in a mother’s womb for 10 months in a miracle of development from a microscopic dot to a little baby born to live in the world without being in the mother’s tummy. Then after birth the child is fed at the mother’s breast for sometimes up to 1-2 years. This time in the womb and in breastfeeding provides a special bond between mothers and children. Then in most societies mothers stay at home with children as they slowly grow into adults. Mother’s bandage wounds, take children to school, are involved in their children’s school, take children to doctors, take children to sports events and so on. Thus mother’s and children have a special relationship and meaning to our world. Through the history of the world many special agencies have existed to support the rights and purposes of mother’s and children. In fact the World Health Organization has a whole branch of its work entitled ‘Mother and Child Health or MCH.’ Thus on this day of the week we will talk about what Dr. Luke has to say about mother’s and children health issues.
What does Dr. Luke have to say about mothers and their children? Plenty. In fact the first two stories he tells in his writings are about two mothers and the birth of sons to these women. Both of these pregnancies and births was the first for these women. The first lady was more advanced in years and had not been able to have children. The second mother was quite young. The first mother’s name was Elizabeth and her son was named John. The second mother’s name was Mary and her son was called Jesus. Why are these stories about two mothers’ and their sons in Dr. Luke’s writings? The reason is that both of their sons were unusual sons.
Elizabeth’s son, who was named John, was a prophet and he lived in what is now present-day Israel around 2000 years ago. He job was to predict the coming of a long awaited prophet who was to literally be called ‘God with us’ or Jesus. Jesus was Mary’s first son. John did predict the coming of Jesus. At the birth of Jesus, an angel came to some men to say, ‘I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in Bethlehem (still a city near current day Jerusalem) a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord (Luke 2.10,11).’ This Jesus was not just any son he was to be the Savior of the world. But saving from what? Was he saving them from disease, war or famine? He came to save the people of the world from their sin. The sin, which separates them from God.
But what does all of this have to do with mother and children’s health? Quite a lot actually, for example, some people in the world prefer children without physical defects or mental defects. As we saw in another talk the proper home allows children to grow physically, mentally, socially and spiritually into normal mature people. Some mother’s smoke or drink alcohol while they are pregnant with their baby. This only harms the baby and can stunt their physical and mental growth after they are born. Some women do not eat properly and this also harms the child in the womb as well.
Dr. Luke had a friend named Mark who also wrote around the same time he did. This friend also lived near the same place Dr. Luke lived and also wrote about many of the same things and especially the man named Jesus. Mark tells a story about a young girl who was sick and how her mother tried to help her. The story goes something like this. A woman who was of Syrian descent and Greek by birth came to Jesus and begged him to help her daughter. Jesus told her he was very busy with the other people he had come to help. However, the lady was so persistent that she finally was able to get Jesus to help her daughter. The lady thus left and went back to her house and when she arrived her daughter was already healed. This was certainly remarkable. Jesus healed the little girl and he did not even see her or even go to her house.
What can we learn about mothers and children from this story? First, a mother’s love is very deep and caring. Second, a mother’s love can cause her to make great sacrifices for her child. This mother went away from her home to find help. Third, a mother’s love can have great faith. This mother believed greatly that Jesus could heal in order to help her daughter.
What can we learn about Jesus and the care and concern for mothers and their children? First, he cared for them. Second, he was interested in healing the little girl. Third, Jesus did not mind healing someone completely different from him. For you see, the little girl and her mother were both Greek and Jesus was Hebrew. They were two different ethnic groups. As different as an Eastern person was from a Western person. But that did not matter to Jesus; he wanted to help all people. Finally, Jesus did not mind using miraculous healing powers in helping mother’s and children. This little girl was healed before the mother even arrived home and she was healed completely. This shows a great deal of compassion that Jesus had for mothers and children.
Today there are many organizations, which have interest and concern in helping mother’s and children to have better health. As mentioned above, the World Health Organization has a whole branch devoted especially to maternal child health. This is very important. This health concern begins even before a woman becomes a mother. Then these concerns continue through the mother’s pregnancy with the baby. Finally it continues through when the child is growing up until it becomes an adolescent.
Lets look at these three areas briefly. First the time a woman has before she becomes pregnant,second the time during pregnancy and third the time after a child is born to when he or she becomes an adolescent. Each of these times is very important to the mother and the child.
First, the time before a woman even becomes pregnant. Why is this important to the child? We could see why this time is important to the mother. But what difference would it make to a future child? During this time the mother can develop good or bad habits, which may hurt her body or mind and thus make her not ready for pregnancy. How could this happen? First, she could smoke cigarettes, drink too much alcohol, or use drugs all of which she could become addicted to and then when she became pregnant she could have trouble giving up these habits. Pregnancy with drinking alcohol, smoking or using drugs can be harmful to the growing baby. Second, the woman could not exercise regularly and thus be overweight or in poor health and have a hard time during or after pregnancy. This is also important after pregnancy because a new baby requires a lot of energy and a woman not in good shape will become tired easily and not be able to help her baby. Also the woman could have underlying diseases, which are not her fault. For example, she could have Diabetes. If this is not well controlled before pregnancy then when the woman becomes pregnant she will have more troubles with her pregnancy. All these are good reasons to keep good health even if a woman is not pregnant and does not have children. Thus during this time it is important for a woman to get good exercise, eat a good diet, keep her weight down as much as possible and if she has underlying health problems to see her doctor regularly to keep these diseases in good control.
Second, is during the time of pregnancy. This is a very important time as even very small amounts of medicine, tobacco or alcohol can cause permanent harm to the small and growing baby. What can a newly pregnant mother do? First, she needs to go see her doctor as soon as she is pregnant to make sure she and the new baby are doing fine. The doctor will exam her, check her blood pressure and other things. Second, if the woman is using alcohol, tobacco or harmful drugs she needs to stop them. If the woman has other diseases, like diabetes and is on some medicines, then the woman needs to check with her doctor to see if these medicines are safe or will cause harm to the baby. This should be done at the very beginning of the pregnancy. The doctor will ask the new mother to come for regular checks and the woman should keep these checks. If during the pregnancy the woman has a fever, the baby stops moving or unexpected bleeding the mother should see the doctor immediately. During the pregnancy the mother should continue regular exercise and work to have a good balanced diet.
During the last month of pregnancy the baby grows very rapidly. This is a time of great change, excitement and fatigue for the mother. The doctor during this last month often wants to see the mother every week. This is because the baby could be coming early and the mother might not know this. Thus it is very important to see the mother often to make sure the mother does not need any special attention as well as the baby. The mother often have during this time has false contractions. Sometimes these are so real the mother thinks she will be having a baby that day. However, real contractions need to be at regular intervals about five minutes apart to be considered important. What is also of very great importance during this time is for the doctor to exam the woman to really see if the baby is coming or the contractions are false. Women often are concerned that they go past the due date. This is not uncommon and up to a week is ok. After that the doctor may attempt to induce the pregnancy, as there could be some harm to the baby if it is not born.
The actual time of birth when the baby is born is one of the great moments of life. Many things are happening and happen so very quickly that giving birth it is truly one of the great wonders of life. Also, many things can go wrong thus it is important to have trained staff present to assist with the birth of the new baby. In countries where there are very few trained personal up to 100 of 1000 babies die in childbirth and 1000 of 100,000 women die in child birth. Countries with trained personnel have only 10 babies of 1000 die in childbirth and 10 mothers of 100,000 die in childbirth. Thus it is important to be in the best hospital you can be in during the birth of your child.
After a child is born and they are healthy they grow so very fast. Future talks will address all of the amazing changes, which take place during the first years of life.
For a moment let us go back though to the two births we began to talk about at the beginning of this talk. Especially that of the person named Jesus. Jesus was not born in a great hospital. He was born in a lowly stable where animals were kept. Why was this? Because he came as the Lord of the world to show us how humble he was and not how great he was. Why was this important to us? He came to humbly bear our sins, which is what we did wrong, so that we might have eternal life. All of us may be born and go through the miracle of creation in our mother’s womb. However, all of us will also die. The Bible tells us that ‘all have sinned’ and that the ‘result of sin is death but the gift God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.’ How can this be? The miracle of birth is one of the great miracles of life. Jesus said that if we believe in Him for eternal life we will be born again. But how can we be ‘born again?’ How can we have eternal life?
Jesus said if we believe that he died for our sins and that he rose from the dead we would be saved both now and forever more. We would be born again to a new eternal life. What a great promise. Our mother’s may do many great things for us but only Jesus Christ can give us eternal life. If you want to have Jesus come into your life then pray the following prayer with me, ‘Dear Jesus, I know that I have sinned and believe that you died on the Cross for my sins. I also know that you rose from the dead to show that you conquered death. I believe that you did all of this for me.’ If you prayed this prayer then congratulations you are a child of God and will live forever.