BADAKHSHAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan
Among the subjects that have long compelled London-based photographer Lynsey Addario: maternal mortality, which she has documented in many countries; and the difficult lives of women in modern Afghanistan. The drama she encountered on a rural Afghan road in December 2010 entwined both. Surprised by the unusual sight of unaccompanied women in the countryside, Addario and the physician she was traveling with learned one of the women was pregnant, and in labor. Her husband previously had lost a wife to childbirth. His car had broken down, he was trying to locate another, and Addario and her companion drove the family to a hospital. This episode, recounted in a magazine compilation of Addario’s Afghanistan images, ended without grief. Aided by nurses, the 18-year-old mother delivered a baby girl.