Keji Moses
Founder of Mayah’s LegacyThe Work of Mayah’s Legacy in Supporting Women and Families After Pregnancy Loss
Mayah’s Legacy is a UK-based charity that aims to promote self-education, self-advocacy and compassionate care for women and families after baby loss. It seeks to address the psycho-social effects of baby loss on women and families. A self-empowerment approach is used to help people to move beyond their feelings of helplessness and to understand that their voice and experience matters. Also, care provision is not a one-sided process. The best way to provide clinical care is for a woman or family to actively participate in their journey, and self-confidence is needed for this.
Mayah’s Legacy was established in 2020 by its founder and present CEO, Keji Moses, following the death of her stillborn daughter, Mayah, a year previously. Mayah is Keji’s second baby loss. Keji realised that, while her grief and pain were personal, she was able to use these experiences, along with her professional skills in Coaching and Counselling, to meet the needs of some families in similar situations.
Mayah’s Legacy empowers families by providing them with the tools to make decisions about their treatment and care after baby loss, as well as to explore a holistic approach to their wellbeing. The objective is to help families regain their confidence, to contribute meaningfully towards decisions affecting them, and to receive compassionate care.
The Approach and Delivery of Support by Mayah’s Legacy
Mayah’s Legacy provides a range of online resources that are designed to recognise social diversity, and to cater for different personal and family needs. While pregnancy loss is a difficult journey for everyone, not everyone’s journey is going to be the same. Additionally, the online delivery of family support can be more inclusive for families living at a distance from professional and peer experts and is an ongoing resource.
Online Resources
- A Series of Short Webinairs with National Experts
We have recorded 14 webinars, each lasting up to 30 minutes each, with professional and peer experts in the field of Coaching Clinical Psychologists. Professionals like Dr. Kara Davey, Dinma Nwobi, Caroline Purvey, Nadine Robinson, Joanne Zerdy. Using life experience and professional expertise, they encourage families to explore various aspects of self-awareness and self-advocacy.
Through these sessions, families can be better equipped to make informed decisions, gaining self -knowledge and the skills to express their needs and choices. For example, Dr Joanne Zerdy delivers a session on “Rehearsing self-advocacy and Cultivating grief practice”. She discusses her personal grief and in order to navigate the grief journey, where she and her partner rehearsed their responses to potential questions that would be asked. This communication strategy helped them to feel in control during conversations with friends and families.
Dr Joanne Zerdy is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of Inviting Abundance. She is an Educator, Curriculum Designer, Grief Worker, PhD researcher, Writer, Editor, and Herbalist
Webinairs have also introduced families to different personal coping strategies. For example, Nadine Robinson – Journal Therapist delivered a session on “How to use Journaling as an act of self-care” In this webinar session, Nadine gives practical guide on how to use personal writing practice to map out feelings and emotions. This practice helps to piece together factual narrative by helping place emotions into a logical and rational framework.
Nadine Robinson is the Founder of NPNarratives. She is a certified Life Coach, Neuro-linguistic programming Practitioner, and Author.
(https://www.mayahslegacy.com/webinarseries).
This resource is available online and is free to download. Our tool kit is to support communication and negotiation skills for families in social and clinical settings. It guides families through a series of emotional and practical steps for strengthening self-advocacy. The topics covered in the toolkit include: clarification of what self-advocacy means; self-awareness; assertive communication; negotiation; and approaches to note taking in meetings.
These free online resources are underpinned by underlying principles. These are:
- Person-Centered Support
Mayah’s Legacy expects that every person has their own unique way of coping with stillbirth and baby death. Women and families are supported, during online, professionally facilitated discussions, to process of feelings of loss in a space that is safe and non-judgmental.
- Self-advocacy and Self-Compassion
Our charity’s goal is to help women and parents to learn to advocate for themselves. and to become more self-compassionate. Our professionals offer a series of webinars that explore various aspects of self-awareness.
- Holistic Care and Steps to Recovery
Mental support is not the only part of your healing and recovery journey. Our services also focus on your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being and include ongoing memory of the baby who has been lost.
Outcomes of the Work of Mayah’s Legacy
To date, our online resources have had 1.3 Million Facebook Live Viewers and ourFacebook Live sessions, where we talk about the impact of pregnancy loss on the mental health of a mother, have reached more than 1.3 million people. In addition, over 17k people have downloaded the self-advocacy toolkit. In all, over 28,000 families are aware of our online activities and resources. Families who have commented on the webinars have remarked on the personal benefits of feeling “listened to and comfortable to express feelings”; of receiving “to the point’ advice”, of expert facilitation and of the use of easily accessible language.
The take-up of on-line information and support offered by Mayah’s Legacy indicates the pressing need for personalised, psycho-social support and for self-empowerment for women and families following baby loss. Mayah’s Legacy is dedicated to support provision for psycho-social care for women and families coping with baby loss.
Empowering families to rise through pain, find strength, and advocate for themselves.
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References
Bardos, J., Hercz, D., Friedenthal, J., Missmer, S.A. and Williams, Z., 2015. A national survey on public perceptions of miscarriage. Obstetrics and gynecology, 125(6), p.1313.
Evans, R., 2012. Emotional care for women who experience miscarriage. Nursing Standard (through 2013), 26(42), p.35.
Herbert, D., Young, K., Pietrusińska, M. and MacBeth, A., 2022. The mental health impact of perinatal loss: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 297, pp.118-129.
Lee, C. and Slade, P., 1996. Miscarriage as a traumatic event: a review of the literature and new implications for intervention. Journal of psychosomatic research, 40(3), pp.235-244.
Mayah’s Legacy. About Us https://www.mayahslegacy.com/ (accessed 28.09.23)
Mayah’s Legacy. Resources Hub https://www.mayahslegacy.com/resourceshub (accessed 28.09.23)
Tommys.org. Baby Loss Statistics https://www.tommys.org/baby-loss-support/pregnancy-loss-statistics (accessed 29.09.23)
Quenby, S., Gallos, I.D., Dhillon-Smith, R.K., Podesek, M., Stephenson, M.D., Fisher, J., Brosens, J.J., Brewin, J., Ramhorst, R., Lucas, E.S. and McCoy, R.C., 2021. Miscarriage matters: the epidemiological, physical, psychological, and economic costs of early pregnancy loss. The Lancet, 397(10285), pp.1658-1667.
