NMDF Origin Story

Helping Mothers and Infants—A Relief Society Legacy

From the earliest days of The Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saint women stood at the heart of healing care for women and children. Relief Society sisters were leaders in midwifery, nursing, and medicine - caring for mothers before childbirth, delivering babies in homes and settlements, and sharing healing knowledge as an act of faith. In 1873, Eliza R. Snow relayed President Brigham Young’s call for women to study medicine and midwifery and carry that knowledge throughout Zion. Women’s sphere, she taught, was not narrow. It was expanding.

That vision became tangible as Relief Society sisters opened maternity hospitals and established the Deseret Hospital in 1882 under a Relief Society board. Women physicians - many of whom had been sent east to train in emerging medical schools for women - returned to teach midwifery and nursing, ensuring care rooted in both skill and compassion. Caring for women and children was not peripheral to the Church’s mission. It was central. (Click for more)

The Church continues this legacy by sending teams of doctors and nurses in areas of the world of greatest need. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq is one of those locations, as childbirth is too often shadowed by a healthcare system weakened by decades of conflict. Since 2003, an estimated 70% of Iraq’s medical professionals have fled, leaving dedicated nurses and midwives without senior mentorship or advanced, hands-on training. The consequences are stark: Iraq’s infant mortality rate remains more than three times that of the United States.

Continuing the Legacy Today

The Nursing and Midwifery Development Foundation (NMDF) was established after Michele Calderon and Carolyn Melby, two Relief Society members, were powerfully moved following a data collection trip to the Nursing and Midwifery Development Center in Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq and recognized the desperate need for a reliable funding stream to support the work.

Partnering with Eva Said, a UK-educated nurse who lives in Kurdistan, the Church funded a 36,000 square-foot facility with a $1.9 million grant. The Nursing and Midwifery Development Centre (NMDC) opened in January 2024 - the first of its kind in the region. To date, the NMDC has provided nearly 300 courses to over 3400 professionals, including nurses and midwives who deliver life-saving care to mothers and infants.

Russell M. Nelson, former President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, celebrated this work in his Mother’s Day Instagram post of May 2024:

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continuously collaborates with dedicated leaders and charitable organizations to improve conditions for mothers and children around the world. ​. . . The Church participated with the ​Nursing and Midwifery Development Center ​to open a 36,000-square-foot training facility to train ​nurses and midwives in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. ​This facility will help women and children survive ​and thrive. ​The Church participated with extraordinary ​women to implement these tremendous ​efforts.”​

Why You Matter

The building now stands, but the work must endure. The Nursing and Midwifery Development Foundation, a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, seeks to establish a permanent endowment to fund NMDC faculty, equipment, and life-saving curriculum.

An endowment is more than a gift; it is a living legacy that will sustain the NMDC in perpetuity. We invite you to join this consecrated tradition. Together, we can ensure more mothers return home with their babies in their arms—for generations to come!