The day a woman gives birth is also the day she is most likely to die or suffer severe injury—a sobering reality that comes into sharp focus when Kate Grant visits the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia’s capital. There, she sees row after row of beds occupied by young women afflicted with obstetric fistula, a childbirth injury that leaves them incontinent and, too often, modern-day lepers who are shunned by their communities. She soon learns that surgery is the only way to end their suffering.