Woman goes mute after giving birth

About 50 kilometres outside Tsumkwe, in a small village called Chivekua, a family is battling to cope with the fact that their daughter, sister, mother and wife went completely mute after giving birth three-and-a-half months ago.

/Kunda //Asa (29) was known for her vibrant laughter and her love for dancing, singing and sharing stories by the communal fire.

But her personal brand of sunshine was clouded by a cloak of melancholy when she went mute right after birthing her third child on 3 October 2023.

Medical documentation - which her husband /Ui carries around – does not clearly account for what went wrong with //Asa.

In the meantime, her husband is slipping into a deep depression because of her condition.

According to him, they have been to the Omaruru State Hospital as well as the Swakopmund State Hospital to find out why she can no longer utter a single word, save for a rare nod.

Since they have not been given any answers, /Ui decided to bring her back to Tsumkwe where her parents live, hoping this might bring some change to her condition.

‘Her silence haunts me’

While her family is racked with concern, //Asa sits like a stone figure, staring blankly ahead of her.

“We are not feeling good in our hearts. Perhaps we will take her to church tomorrow to see if they can find out what is wrong with her,” her father Cwi Di said.

In a culture deeply rooted in communal support, //Asa’s husband, together with their family, rally around her, as he scurries around to prepare milk for their baby, who is as light as a feather and the size of 750ml bottle.

/Ui, although burdened with the responsibility of caring for his wife and their three young children, is confident that his wife will speak again.

“I want to take her to the clinic here at Tsumkwe so they can give her an injection in the arm, so that her voice comes out again,” he said.

He believes this is the only way to cure her.

/Ui told Namibian Sun that he has been bathing her and cooking for their family since the start of this sad ordeal, all while he tries to lure a few words from her.

He doesn’t mind these tasks, he added.

“It is her silence that haunts me, nothing else. She just looks at me, and then her eyes fall to the ground, and that’s how she sits all day. I have to sometimes shake her to breastfeed the crying baby. I’m not sure if she hears the baby cry,” he said.

Asked whether the timeless rituals of the San people might be able to heal her, he stared up to the sky and spoke in Ju /hoan, as if asking the gods for answers.

Stressful event

Local psychologist Dr Shaun Whittaker said women going mute after childbirth can happen when the birth is particularly stressful, adding that high levels of anxiety can lead to a host of issues.

He explained that women can lose their voice for a day or two, or longer. They can go blind, or lose the ability to use one of their hands for a few days.

“In the olden days, they called it hysterical speech loss. Nowadays, it’s called functional neurological system disorder. It simply means that one of the neurological functions in the body does not function well because of a stressful event.”

He added that it’s usually temporary, and said he hopes //Asa’s speech will soon return.

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