Save 10,000 Lives with Cigna + Samahope

I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for the Cigna Foundation, in partnership with Samahope. I received a promotional item to thank me for my participation.

As moms, it’s our job to protect our little ones. Both boys gave us quite a few scares between their pregnancies and after. Lucky for us, we live in the United States and have access to amazing health care.

You can read Charlie’s story and Owen’s story, but I’ll give you a quick recap. While I was pregnant with Charlie, I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia. Because of that, I was induced and wound up with a cesarean. Before the c-section though, they had problems regulating my heart rate (and Charlie’s) and I was eventually given a vent to help. After Charlie was born, we found out he had a large VSD that would require open heart surgery when he was just seven weeks old. Let’s skip ahead to Owen. When I was nine weeks pregnant with Owen, I had emergency surgery to remove the burst tube that his ectopic twin. I had a lot of internal bleeding and they weren’t able to really see what was going on until they were in there.

Like I said earlier, we live in a part of the world where we are fortunate enough to have access to the health care we need for ourselves and our little ones. Even though what we went through with our boys was incredibly scary, we were able to receive medical care in a safe, clean environment. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened to myself or either of the boys had that not been the case.

Sadly, not everyone in the world is so lucky. has partnered with Samahope to help raise awareness and funds to improve the maternal health and safe childbirth resources provided to women around the world. And you can help, too.

Does that look anything like where you delivered your babies? I know it certainly doesn’t look like mine!

Did you know that a woman dies from preventable causes related to pregnancy and birth every two minutes? That’s a really sad and scary statistic. This year, is on a mission to protect the lives of women and children in need, and they aren’t stopping until they reach the goal of funding enough birth kits for 5,000 moms and 5,000 babies—10,000 lives. This is the 10,000 Lives campaign!

For just $5, you ! At Samahope, $5 helps fund a birth kit that includes the sterile tools to enable a Skilled Birth Attendant to protect a mother and child from life-threatening complications during childbirth. Just $5!

Can you help save 10,000 lives?