Pregnancy and childbirth a growing risk under Israeli blockade and bombardment

Amid a deadly war in Gaza, a new life begins. But newborns and those who are still in the womb are among the worst harsh conditions.

With a sharp deficiency in food, the United Nations says that one in 10 new children are underweight or premature. There was also an increase in miscarriage, endemic and congenital deformities.

At Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, Malack Price is now feared for seven months of Israeli bombings, evacuation orders, and the loss of her child.

“I am afraid that I can have an early birth at any time and that my security questioner is not enough for the child to grow,” I told BBC.

Malak did not expect to depict her second child. Six weeks ago, she lost a lot of amniotic fluid, and put her child at risk.

“Doctors told me that it was due to malnutrition and exhaustion … They told me that he was in the hands of God – the fetus could stay or die.”

While poor nutrition causes new risk of pregnancy, birth has become more dangerous.

The total siege of Israel on Gaza imposed on March 2 – which he said was pressure on Hamas – was partially mitigated two weeks ago. There is a lack of basic medical supplies, including pain relievers, and basic hygiene products.

Sometimes, Israeli military action and displacement means that women are born in their tents or shelters without medical assistance.

“If mothers are lucky enough to come to hospitals to deliver their children, women who are born vaginal are usually sent to the house after three to four hours,” says Sandra Kelin, an emergency and American registrar who recently worked in the hospital in Gaza.

Women who underwent C. [Caesareans] “It is emptied after 24 hours,” she said.

“They often went out to their homes with children with different conditions and issues in normal circumstances, we were staying in the hospital for more support.

“Most of the children, outside Gaza, who were born less than 32 weeks, less than 1400 grams (3.1 pounds), will be in Nicu [neo-natal intensive care unit]. These children are sent home. There is no space for them. “

Nasser Hospital still has the new intensive intensive care unit, and it is full. Doctors say they were overwhelmed with patients since the near European Hospital was targeted in A. The deadly Israeli bombing on May 13 And expelled from use.

The Israel Army has repeatedly attacked hospitals in nearly 20 months of war and says it targeted the local Hamas leader, Muhammad Sinwar, at an underground base under the European Hospital complex.

He accuses Hamas of hiding its fighters and infrastructure routinely behind the patients and the wounded, which is something that the armed group denies.

With the possibility of basic health care now, most United Nations estimates are 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza unable to obtain regular prenatal examinations.

“The psychological state of women at the birth point is tragic, so that God helps them,” says Dr. Ahmed Al -Farara, Chief Care of Children at Nasser Hospital.

“They are completely aware that their children who have not yet been born are not monitored properly and that themselves did not receive adequate nutrition, so they expect their children to suffer from low birth weight or other complications. This is the first concern.”

“The second is that after birth, they feel deep anxious about how they can breastfeed or even a safe formula, especially with the constant lack of food. Both options are equally difficult.”

Hagia al -Saqafi, looking at the pictures of her daughter, Jenan, in a shelter in Gaza City.

The child was born during the ceasefire earlier this year, and she was initially healthy. But when food became rare, her mother struggled for breastfeeding.

Aya says: “After the crossings were closed, everything was closed to us.” “There was no flour, no clean water, nor food like fruits and vegetables that need to be in good health. When my condition worsened, Jinan’s condition worsened more.”

Jinan was diagnosed with malnutrition and dehydration and had problems with digestion. Doctors have not been able to find the special formula you need.

Aya recalls, “I was torn with a thousand pieces to the extent that I wanted to shout at the whole world, saying:” Save my daughter from death, save her! “

“I begged to help, but only God, the Lord of the world answered. Just God saved it from the cruelty of this world.”

Jenan died last month – she was four months old.

Many mothers are struggling to breastfeed because of their poor health, but an organization in Scotland, the Gaza Nutrition Alliance, trains the local paramedics to provide more support.

Nurse Sandra Kellin, who is also a breastfeeding specialist, works with them.

“We completely recommend breastfeeding, even when mothers are exposed to malnutrition unless they suffer from acute malnutrition,” she says.

“Often mothers who gave the formula, they become dependent on it, reduce their milk, then they cannot reach the formula, or they have no clean water.”

Now I returned home in the United States, Sandra narrated some of the painful cases she faced in Khan Yunis and at the Al -Shuhada Al -Aqsa Hospital in the central city of Deir Al -Bala.

For the first time, the mother visited the hospital before birth, but the Israeli air strikes mean that she ended up handing over her child alone with her husband in their tents camp.

For five days, she faced difficulties in getting the newborn in breastfeeding. When it was finally safe to travel to the hospital, it was too late to save her child.

Another woman survived her from a tank’s lamp near her home, but she was shrapnel in her chest, which cut the milk canal. She needed expert advice on how to continue feeding.

She was a mother of four years well to help feed her early birth, but then her tent was bombed. Her husband was killed, and a few hours later, they received an Israeli military evacuation order.

The woman fainted her while she was fleeing with her children and she was unable to breastfeed for three days. In her case, fortunately, they were able to find the child’s form.

“There is a story, on the story, on the story,” Sandra says. “In general, we are facing a large and despair in despair, in despair and thinking about suicide.”

Big families are the standard in Gaza, but in the camps for the displaced, many women have the usual support from relatives and friends while they are carrying them and then their struggle with newborns.

In addition to working in Gaza twice last year, Sandra provided advice to women remotely. She was close to a pharmacist, Jumana Qaf, during her high -risk pregnancy with twins.

“I gave birth yesterday, Sandra, with the C section, thank God, my children and I am in good and healthy,” says Jumana in an English voice that I sent with pictures last August. She had appointed her infant child ASSER and GIRL AYSAL.

But the joy of Jumana and her family was short -lived.

Three days later, her husband, Muhammad Aboul Gatasan, was getting birth certificates when he obtained news that his wife, birth and campaign were killed in an Israeli missile strike in their shelter in Deir Al -Bala.

Pictures of journalists at Al -Shuhada Al -Aqsa Hospital, Muhammad, are collapsing in the courtyard.

While the Israeli army said he had no knowledge of the incident, adding that he targeted “only military targets”, while taking steps to reduce harm to civilians.

As for Sandra, Jumana’s death, her mother and new children, was “destroyed that exceeds the destroyer and the perceived beyond the heartbreak.” “I am still thinking about it, and I was crying,” she says.

In Gaza, for most women, pregnancy and childbirth were one day for expectation and excitement, but they are now times of stress and increasing fear.

Instead of representing hope in new life, children came to vaccinate the struggle to survive.