I recently had a baby. He is awesome and I completely adore him. But taking care of a newborn was hard work. Painfully, relentlessly, distressingly hard work. We got through it by tag teaming holding him at night, buying all sorts of things that would help him sleep and me heal, and by ordering lots and lots of takeaways. I simply could not have done it if I was alone and living on £40 per week. 

But that's what some refugee and asylum seeker mums living here in Nottingham have to do. A few weeks after my baby was born, I was told about a young woman who's baby was born by emergency c-section. She was a newly arrived refugee, with no friends, no family, and absolutely nothing to help her care for herself or her new baby. I simply cannot imagine how awful it must have been for her. 

So I made a small donation to the Refugee Forum. The Project Worker was over the moon. She told me that she didn't have any kind of budget to help women like her, but now she would be able to get her a few basics to make life easier. She mentioned other stories of families with nothing for their new babies, no clothes, no nappies, no blankets, no crib, nothing to welcome their new baby into the world. Parents should be able to enjoy their new baby, not be worried sick about how they are going to keep it safe and warm. 

It feels like everything in the world has gone bonkers, and that there's nothing we can do to make it right. But if we can help a frightened new mum to feel that she's not completely alone, well maybe that's something.