Soon after her newborn son Callum was admitted to the neonatal intensive car unit in June last year, Naude received a care package from Canterbury charity One Mother to Another.
“I was pregnant with my first baby and everything was fine as far as I knew, then all of a sudden ... I had an emergency C-section so my newborn son went straight into NICU after that,” said Naude.
“There was a lot of grieving ... a lot of unknowns and a lot of worry ... riding those ups and downs was really difficult.
“I honestly felt like we were never going to leave the neonatal unit and I get emotional just thinking about that because it was really hard to remain hopeful.”
Said Naude: "It was just so impactful.
"When you’re in this sterile hospital environment where everything is new and unfamiliar and foreign to you, it was a touch of warmth and compassion.
"The pack really gave me a sense of hope ... it just reminded me that actually, you can do this - you’re strong and capable,” she said.
Naude is now on the One Mother to Another volunteer team, which has started a Givealittle campaign in support of other mothers and carers who are in hospital over the Christmas period.
The campaign will run until November 17, with the aim of raising $7500 to fund 300 care packages.
Said the charity’s co-founder and chief executive Joy Reid: “While we all wish for health and happiness for our loved ones at Christmas, unfortunately for some, who will be separated from family and riddled with stress and fear, that’s not the reality.
“We want them to know they are not alone.”
One Mother to Another also started providing ‘Dad’s care packages in September to "recognise the father figures", Reid said.
Zoe's experience
“I was in the hospital with Louie who was six months at the time and we went in and discovered he had a brain tumour,” said Radburnd, who lives in Lincoln.
“When we got the CT of the tumour, it looked like it was covering a quarter of his brain. We didn’t know what the prognosis was.”
Louie was in the hospital for three days before they operated and afterwards he was in intensive care for a night before being transferred to the high-care unit in June 2022.
Said Radburnd: “While in hospital it was quite isolating ... as we waited for Louie to get out of surgery, one of the nurses brought us a One Mother to Another pack.”
Radburnd said receiving the package was “just the light they needed” to keep going.
“It reminded us that we can fight whatever comes to us.
“Reading that handwritten note was amazing. Reading those words saying you know ‘you are valued, you can do this’ was just something we needed to hear when we were going through so much.
“Louie is now 23 months old and is tumour-free and a normal boy-ish toddler," she said.
The mother of two from Lincoln spent 31 days in the neonatal intensive care unit in 2021 and had to decide where to split her time on Christmas Day – at the hospital with Lettie, or at home with her four-year-old son.
“(It was) a truly foreign and awful feeling. The mum guilts were hitting hard that day,” said Benson.
“Even though I was in a room full of people, I felt so alone, but the note made me feel seen and loved.
“The gift pack brought a smile to my face on an otherwise upsetting and disjointed day. These gifts are sunshine on the cloudiest of days.”
- For more information, go to www.onemothertoanother.org.nz/our-story.
