Our baby boxes support the most vulnerable new mums
Karen Whiteread, 59, of National Lottery-funded PramDepot, explains how YOU help provide essentials to women with nowhere to turn in the coronavirus crisis
A couple of weeks after lockdown started, I found myself on the other side of London in a housing estate I didn’t know, trying to find a young woman I had never met before. She was a refugee, pregnant, alone and living in temporary accommodation.
It was pouring with rain and I was standing in a stairwell as, in broken English, she was trying to explain over the phone how I could find her.
When I finally got to her doorstep, I couldn’t even smile at her because I was wearing a face mask. And social distancing rules meant I couldn’t go in to sit down, have a cup of tea and explain the things in the box I was bringing her, as I would do normally. But as she stood in her doorway, I could tell she was really excited.
Hours later, we received a text message. It said how happy and delighted she was with the things we had brought her – that now she finally felt ready to have her baby, which she hadn’t before. It was such a moving moment.
I set up PramDepot seven years ago, recycling baby clothes and equipment. We pass it on to hard-toreach women – the asylum seekers and refugees, women facing domestic violence or those who have escaped from domestic violence, women with mental health issues, young mums living in chaotic circumstances and women in drug rehabilitation units or prison. They have no money and no family support.
We normally have a core group of 10 volunteers, but since coronavirus it has just been me and my daughter Rosa, 32, running everything. So we decided to concentrate on baby boxes for newborns. They contain a sling, a steriliser and a breast pump as well as baby clothes, nappies, wet wipes, nappy cream and hygiene stuff for the mother. We’ve even started putting in a couple of loo rolls.
It has been a struggle, but we have been helped enormously by National Lottery funding. It allows us to pay for storage to quarantine the items for a week before we pass them on. And because lockdown has made it difficult to accept donations, where necessary we have also been able to afford a few bits to put in the boxes.
The grant has been a lifeline for us, allowing us to keep giving out our boxes which, in turn, the mothers say
“Thanks to the box a refugee said she finally felt ready to have her baby – it was such a moving moment.”