Salma Hayek talks motherhood lessons and her campaign alongside Pampers and UNICEF
Salma Hayek recently sat down with People En Espanol for an interview to discuss her new life with daughter, Valentina Paloma, 6 months, and her campaign launch alongside Pampers and UNICEF, One Pack=One Vaccine. At the launching of the campaign, Salma — with tears in her eyes — told the audience that she would support this campaign and think about the children.Every three minutes one of them dies. A death that easily could have been prevented [by the tetanus vaccine].
I only have one daughter and that has been … I don’t know, maybe I will have more, but for now this definitely has been the most incredible experience I have had in my life and I have done a lot. I am sure that there are plenty of women that say ‘God, what a marvelous life, she can do this or that.’ But, there is nothing that I have done that is more incredible than to have a child.
I never cry during acommercial and I cried with this one (the Pampers campaign) because oneof the strongest things is that you see the mothers with their childrenfrom all around the world and the look between all of them is like … weknow what we have to do.It’s very important that women makethemselves heard to try to change the world. Even for people who don’thave money — but still have to buy diapers for their babies becausethey go to the bathroom — it doesn’t matter what happens in life, butone thing we can count on (a child going to the bathroom) and you guyscan make the difference.
When asked what lesson Valentina has taught her:
Every day she gives me lessons. Every day, I wouldn’t know how to say [just] one.
I don’t have one special memory. She’s so memorable that I have my head saturated with so many, she’s so nice. She’s very nice. She makes me laugh all the time. I’ll tell you what lesson she has given me: my daughter laughs all day and all night, even sleeping she’s laughing, she’s always in a good mood.She has two little teeth and just shows you the two little kernels. She’s always smiling, and since she smiles so beautifully, it’s contagious. So now I laugh much more than before.
It’s changed me a lot. But [independently from being a mother], if you knew what the death rate of tetanus is among children, it would break anyone’s heart. It’s a terrible illness for these babies because the way that they are contaminated is when their umbilical cords are cut and they seal them with the dirt that is completely infected with tetanus, and the worst being that the mother doesn’t even know it.Obviously, being a mother, the thing I most hope for in life if I were asked to make a wish, is to have a healthy baby; anyone could relate to that. To think about these poor women and children who have no idea how they became infected, and infected with tetanus, makes me so sad because it’s unnecessary and it’s solved with only five cents.
I love this campaign because it gives us the possibility to help these children that are dying in vain and we can all help in the easiest way: buying diapers, that we would have bought anyway.Every diaper that you buy from Pampers that has the UNICEF seal of One Pack=One Vaccine, every time you buy a diaper, they give a vaccine against tetanus in countries where this bacteria is killing countless babies. When you buy this packet of diapers, a vaccine is immediately donated to save the life of one of these babies that are in danger.
The satisfaction of being united with other moms, to save their lives along with their children. It could be a baby in the Congo, in Madagascar, in different parts of Africa, because despite the many problems we have in our countries, we don’t have a problem with countless deaths every three minutes because of tetanus; something so easy to prevent, so easy to fix.
- Posted on Apr 9, 08 at 1:50PM
- Permalink
- 7 Comments
April 9th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Now these are women we should stand by, women with substance.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Salma is such a nice lady, she sounds thrilled with valentina. Good for her, I’ve always liked her.
April 9th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Whaaa??? If Pampers really wanted to make a difference they would be handing out vaccines regardless of weather or not anyone bought their disposable diapers. I really don’t understand promoting the use of disposable diapers in 3rd world countries when the existing system of Elimination Communication has worked just fine for thousands of years and is far less damaging to already polluted living conditions. I think Salma’s heart is in the right place but she really doesn’t know what she has gotten herself into. People are going to boycott Pampers instead of buying more of them!
April 9th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Upmama, not everyone is comfortable or has the time for cloth diapers and other environmentally safe diapers. We have to remember that. Also some of them aren’t cheap. You are missing the big picture.They are talking about providing vaccines for people who wouldn’t have them anyway.
April 9th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I think it sounds like a great campaign – kudos to Salma for taking up such a worthy cause. Salma’s right, no matter what kind of awesome things you’ve done in your life, not one thing compares to being someone’s mommy! I don’t understand why a previous reader commented so negatively; like Salma said, folks buy Pampers anyway, so this is a good way for the company to give back. I’m sure Pampers will be donating money on their own, too – I mean this IS good advertising for them.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I think UPMAMA really misconstrued this one. Nobody is asking anyone to choose using diapers over elimination communication. Anyone who uses EC now is not going to switch to diapers because of this campaign. Also, Salma is asking mothers in the US to buy diapers to support the cause. Nothing was said about using diapers in the impoverished nations Salma mentiones.
Also, if you read the fine print, I’m willing to bet that Pampers policy is something along the lines of “We will donate up to 500,000 vaccines for up to every 500,000 packs purchased.” I know that came out weird, but that is usually the policy. The company is donating the vaccines, or money, and then counting on people to buy the product. Even if people buy 900,000 cases of diapers, they will still donate only 500,000 vaccines. This is how Dannon ran their “lids” campaign for breast cancer research and how Tampax ran their recent campaign.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:25 am
I would so say this to her face if anyone wants to question my comments:
Disposable diapers are extremely bad for the environment, yet cloth isn’t for everyone and I can even admit that.. but we have a middle ground with the Nature babycare brand and G diapers. Still better for the environment without going to cloth.
And vaccinations are not one size fits all BY FAR! Please parents, do the research before you let strangers just inject your babies with stuff and not blink an eye!