SUPERMUM TO THE RESCUE!

Dr Sapna Shah Mota, a practising homeopath and certified lactation counsellor, narrates her gut-wrenching decision between choosing to be a mum, and on the front lines of the country’s exhausting battle with COVID..

- Dr Sapna Shah Mota

When COVID made it’s first wave in India, it left no stone unturned to wreak havoc in all of our lives. In February 2020, when we had just heard of a possible outbreak, I was already distributing Homeopathic flu-preventive medicine Arsenicum Album 30 to my patients who were traveling abroad. No one anticipated for it to touch India so soon. But unfortunately it did, and it was pure chaos.

When the subsequent lockdowns were announced, everything came to a standstill. Looking on the brighter side, my husband Sanket and I had to be home for so many days at a stretch, for presumably the first time ever. In a ‘normal’ world, our days off would be spent on an outing or a little vacation. But with no malls, restaurants, beaches or national parks being open, we had no option. My son Saarvin got his mum’s and dad’s complete time and attention. So while the world outside grappled under the effects of the pandemic, we chose to count our blessings and spend our time bonding as a family.

My clinic had to be shut during the last week of March, because of the strict lockdown. But as a doctor, I couldn’t afford to keep the doors closed for too long. So even though clinics were known to be breeding grounds for infection, and doctors most vulnerable to this disease, I decided to start again—knowing fully the risks involved in these circumstances—as I still had patients who were suffering and needed regular homeopathic medicines.