ISRAEL’S WAR ON GAZA LEADING TO ‘STAGGERING RISE’ IN MISCARRIAGES AND STILL BIRTHS, DOCTOR SAYS

Sun 08 June 2025:

Israel’s war on Gaza and the famine taking hold there is having a devastating impact on pregnant women and creating a “staggering rise” in still births, miscarriages, pre-term births, and low birth weight in the Strip, Brenda Kelly, a consultant obstetrician from Oxford University Hospital, has told Al Jazeera.

She said that starving pregnant women in Gaza are simply not getting enough of the building blocks for life – such as protein, carbs and fats – and cannot access essential micronutrients such as iron, folic acid, iodine and zinc, which are essential for healthy organ and cellular development in the developing baby and the placenta.

Even before October 2023, the Israeli blockade on Gaza had already compromised the health of pregnant women [in Gaza], who were struggling with conditions like anaemia, she said.

“But what we’re seeing now is the direct fallout of Israel’s weaponising of hunger in Gaza – impacting babies’ growth and growth restriction is one of the leading causes of miscarriages and stillbirth.”

She said the severe malnutrition among pregnant women is being compounded by severe stress and psychological trauma, as well as repeated displacement and a lack of safe shelter.

“Severe malnutrition weakens the immune system, so when you couple that with hardly any access to water or to hygiene facilities, we’re also seeing a rising level of infections in pregnancy, which is also going to be contributing to pregnancy loss,” she added.

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Gaza ‘losing a future generation of children’

Gaza is “losing a future generation of children” and those who survive to adulthood will face heightened health risks, obstetrician Brenda Kelly told Al Jazeera.

“We know that famine experienced in-utero has lifelong consequences for children who then go into adulthood with much higher risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as mental health disorders,” Kelly, a subspecialist in maternal and fetal medicine at Oxford University Hospital, said.

Kelly added that Israel’s decimation of health infrastructure in Gaza means that women who do lose babies have no access to psycho-social support.

“We know the impact that this personal tragedy has for women, we know the guilt that we carry, but for many women it’s simply not safe to leave where they are to cross and try to reach the nearest health facility,” she said.

“And there are so few health facilities there, the repeated displacement of women and their families throughout Gaza makes it virtually impossible for women to know which facilities are open and get that care.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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