Shoulder-to-shoulder, we sat with Cecelia on the stone schoolhouse steps of a village in the hills of Peru. At thirty-seven years old, she was a confident mother of six. She smiled freely while rocking back and forth, soothing the infant that slept swaddled on her back.
The baby, Johnedison, stirred in his slumber, and Cecelia shifted to help him sleep a bit longer. She told us that the prenatal vitamins helped her to feel stronger with this last pregnancy than with her previous pregnancies, and that Johnedison was born larger than his five older siblings. Another meaningful benefit was that Cecilia was able to work during her pregnancy – a critical factor as the family recently took out a loan to buy a home in town.