Lynsey Addario

And the reason for that is that there was one doctor in the entire province to treat everybody, not just maternity patients.

And there was very little prenatal and postnatal care.

There was a horrible road network.

A lot of this is in the wake of a war in Sierra Leone.

So the infrastructure is broken.

So I went and literally one of the first people I met was Mama Cisse.

And she was pregnant with twins.

She delivered the first baby in her village.

And her sister, who was a midwife, was so worried about her pregnancy that she actually sent an ambulance to collect her sister.

To get to that ambulance, Mama Cisse had to take a canoe across a river to the ambulance and then do like a six-hour bus ride over bumpy roads.

Right.

The second baby wouldn't come out.

And so she needed help.

By the time I met her, she was exhausted.

She was scared to push.

The first baby was out and okay.

And so we talked for like an hour, actually, while she rehydrated and, you know, the midwives were looking after her.

And we talked about her life.

And then eventually she delivered the second baby and she started hemorrhaging.

And this was one of the first births I had covered.