A History of Care for Life

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In the summer of 1999 the news media released a dramatic story of a mother in Mozambique who had delivered her baby in a tree while taking refuge from a devastating flood below her. A photo of the mother, along with accounts of massive destruction to a country already drowning in abject poverty, caught the attention of the world – at least for a brief moment.

About this time Cindy Packard, a midwife in Arizona, was encouraged by a friend who had previously been to Africa, to return with her and explore ways to help. While pondering this, but not really giving serious thought to such a preposterous idea, Cindy read a news article that changed her mind and her life forever. She was overwhelmed as she read “in some parts of Africa over 50% of the babies are dying and that’s because no one is interested in training midwives anymore,” a noted pediatrician was quoted as saying.

At that point Cindy knew she had to do something. She contacted the author and learned this was true. The reasons for these deaths were as simple as a lack of knowledge about such basic things as giving extra fluids to babies with diarrhea.

Researching the plight of Africans, she began to learn more about the unfathomable problems they faced and of the drastic need for help from the outside world. She learned, for example, in Mozambique maternal and infant mortality rates were among the highest in the world with 1 out of 4 children dying before age 5 and that a woman has a 1 in 9 lifetime chance of dying from a pregnancy related complication (compared to 1 in 8,700 in Switzerland).

She tried to contact groups working in Africa to find out how she and her friends could help. The humanitarian department of the LDS Church put her in touch with a couple doing work in Mozambique. They explained the Church had a shipment of obstetrical supplies coming in and they could possibly use someone with expertise in this area to help with distribution. However, they ultimately discouraged Cindy from coming due to the language barriers (the official language in Mozambique is Portuguese), safety issues, her inexperience and lack of connections etc.

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