Fatuma measures out rice provided by SOS Children's Villages Ethiopia.

To the 38-year-old mother of four, life has brought the loss of five children to measles and pneumonia. It has also brought drought. Fatuma lives in Ethiopia’s Gode region, which, like much of the Horn of Africa, has seen little or no rain in the past three years, resulting in grinding poverty.

Fatuma’s husband earns very little as the guard of a state-owned water pump that doesn’t work. The family relies on the crops she grows to eat and the income shared by villagers who use the family’s donkey cart to collect firewood to sell.

Fatuma's youngest son, Nur

Fatuma’s remaining children are 18-year-old Hafsa, who like her mother is pregnant; a 16-year-old daughter; a son who is 12; and another boy, four-year-old Nur. Nur’s chances of survival are uncertain - 127 of every 1,000 Ethiopian children dies before age five.

Fatuma will be looked after by local midwives when she gives birth. Her daughter Hafsa will receive similar care, but in her case special medical attention is needed.

Hafsa is experiencing edema, an accumulation of fluid around the legs and ankles. Medical experts recommend lying down and drinking plenty of water, but these options are not open to Hafsa.  Her best bet would be to receive free prenatal treatment at the SOS Medical Center in Gode, in southeastern Ethiopia. There, working toward improving maternal health among the world’s poorest women - one of eight Millennium Development Goals set by the U.N. - SOS doctors would also ensure she hasn’t developed preeclampsia, a condition similar in appearance to edema that usually shows up in the last month of pregnancy and is potentially fatal.

But the SOS clinic is five miles away, too far for a heavily pregnant woman to walk.

Hafsa and her mother Fatuma live in Gode, Ethiopia.

Although Hafsa and her mother can’t get to the SOS Clinic for prenatal care, SOS helps them by providing emergency food aid and water treatment tablets. One of the two meals a day that Fatuma and her family have eaten for the past two months has been SOS-provided rice. This modest support will help Fatuma and Hafsa sustain their unborn offspring while giving Nur a chance to beat the odds of dying before he becomes a teenager.

The river that Fatuma uses for drinking and washing clothes is dirty, and Fatuma knows it will make them sick if they don’t boil or treat it. Each water purification sachet she receives from SOS purifies 20 liters of water - enough for a day’s drinking and hand washing.

Emergency food rations will only sustain the family for so long. Then it’s back to the maize that Fatuma is growing from seeds planted a month ago. With luck, perseverance, and tender care, the seeds, like Fatuma’s and Hafsa’s unborn children, may survive.

The emergency relief SOS supplies to the poorest of the poor in Ethiopia and elsewhere can make the difference between life and death. Help us make a difference by making a donation today.