Thu 05 June 2025:
The war in Gaza is having a devastating effect on pregnant women and nursing mothers, with an estimated 50,000 at serious risk due to shortages of food and essential medicines, according to a hospital in central Gaza.
Khalil al-Daqran, spokesperson for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, said rates of miscarriage had increased sixfold since the outbreak of war and had been accompanied by a large rise in premature births, Wafa reported.
That had left Gaza’s embattled neonatal units overwhelmed, he said.
Al-Daqran said Israel’s targeting of the healthcare system had brought it to the brink of collapse, with far-reaching impacts on patients in Gaza.
More than 23 hospitals had been put out of action, with those that remained only partly functioning, as a result of severe shortages of medical supplies and fuel, he said.
That meant more than 12,000 cancer patients were left without treatment, resulting in about five deaths a day, while dialysis patients were also dying through a lack of essential treatment.
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Growing dangers of pregnancy and childbirth in Gaza
Amid a deadly war in Gaza, new lives begin. But newborn babies and those still in the womb are among the worst hit by the harsh conditions.
With acute shortages of food, the UN says that one in 10 new babies is underweight or premature. There has also been an increase in miscarriages, stillbirths and congenital abnormalities.
At Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, Malak Brees, now seven months pregnant, fears the Israeli bombings and evacuation orders, and losing her baby.
“I’m frightened that I could have a premature birth at any time and that my amniotic fluid isn’t enough for the baby to grow in,” she tells the BBC.
Malak did not expect to conceive her second child. Six weeks ago, she lost a lot of amniotic fluid, putting her baby in danger.
“The doctors told me it was due to malnutrition and exhaustion… They told me it was in the hands of God – the foetus could survive or die.”
While poor nutrition is causing new hazards in pregnancy, childbirth too has become far riskier.
Sometimes Israeli military action and displacement mean that women are giving birth in their tents or shelters with no medical help.
“If mothers are lucky enough to come to the hospitals to deliver their babies, women who give birth vaginally are typically being sent home three to four hours afterwards,” says Sandra Adler Killen, an American registered emergency and paediatric nurse, who recently worked at the hospital in Gaza.
“Women who have had surgical C-sections [Caesareans] are discharged after 24 hours,” she said.
“They’re discharged to their homes quite often with babies who have conditions and various issues that in normal circumstances we would have stay at the hospital to get more support.
“Most babies, outside of Gaza, born under 32 weeks, under 1,400g (3.1lb), they would be in the NICU [neo-natal intensive care unit]. These babies are sent home. There’s just no space for them.”
Many mothers are struggling to breastfeed because of their own poor health, but a Scotland-based organisation, the Gaza Infant Nutrition Alliance, has been training local medics to give more support.
Sandra Adler Killen, who is also a lactation specialist, works with them.
“We absolutely recommend breastfeeding, even when mothers are malnourished unless they are acutely malnourished,” she says.
“Quite often mothers who have been given formula, they become dependent on it, their milk supply decreases then they don’t have access to formula, or they don’t have clean water.”
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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