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Isabel Kallman of alphamom.com attended a briefing organized by Pampers, UNICEF’s partner in the “One Pack = One Vaccine” campaign. This post is the third in a series by bloggers who participated in that briefing.
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I am truly blessed and fortunate. Yes, I am.
I am in good health and continue to have access to some of the best medical care in the world. My son was born to me in a sterile and safe environment. All 9.5 pounds of him.
I had no idea that when I first met with Caryl Stern of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and she would show me images of herself and Pampers executives visiting Africa it would touch me so profoundly.
See, when I was a child my parents decided to immigrate to the United States from Portugal. However, our family nearly immigrated to the-then-Portuguese-colony Mozambique. Yes, we did.
The photographs I and other mom bloggers saw were of mothers and infants suffering and dying from maternal and neonatal tetanus. They were honest and real images of women.
And, some of these women lived in Mozambique. Yes, they did.
Since then, I have been troubled by the thoughts of the connection I feel for the Mozambican women. We are mothers, daughters, speak Portuguese fluently, have given birth, are trying to do the best we can for our families, and much more.
Yet, education and access to healthcare are the life-changing differences that separate us.
When I was a little girl and cut myself, my mom would pepper me with questions afterwards wanting to know if I had hurt myself with a rusty nail or something else possibly tetanus-laden. When I was pregnant, I suffered a minor, but second-degree burn. My doctor suggested a tetanus immunization and I was inoculated once again; I’ve lost count already over the years.
I’ve always known that maternal and neonatal tetanus is a deadly but preventable disease. I have never met anyone who has contracted it. Nor had I even heard of a case, that is, until meeting Caryl. Honestly, I didn’t even think tetanus existed anymore. I thought it was akin to an urban legend.
But, sadly it is not.
It is all too real for the 128,000 infants and 30,0000 women who lose their lives each year to this preventable disease and the families who must endure after their loved ones’ passings.
I may feel a strong kinship for the mothers of Mozambique. But ultimately, I believe that when you become a mom the children of the world become your children. And that is why I Believe in Zero.
