When Wafaa al-Kurd was about to give birth, she said, she weighed less than her pre-pregnancy weight and was living on rice and artificial juice.
She gave birth to a girl weighing about six pounds, named Tayma, just over two weeks ago, she said. Since then, her husband has spent his days scouring markets in northern Gaza, where the family lives, trying to find enough food for his wife to breastfeed and keep Tayma alive.
Nearly 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza suffer from malnutrition, dehydration and a lack of proper health care, according to Gaza’s health ministry. In a statement on Friday, the ministry said that around 5,000 women in Gaza give birth each month in “cruel, unsafe and unhealthy conditions as a result of bombing and displacement.”
The ministry added that around 9,000 women, including thousands of mothers and pregnant women, have been killed since the Israeli bombardment and offensive began in early October.
The United Nations and aid agencies have warned that famine is looming in the besieged enclave, where health officials have reported that at least 25 people, most of them children, have died of malnutrition and dehydration. previous day
Deborah Harrington, an obstetrician working at Al Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, said the expectant and new mothers she treated did not receive nearly enough care before and after giving birth, putting both their lives and their lives at risk. babies.
Some of the new mothers she spoke to said they were forced to give birth on the street, in their shelters or in their cars, because they could not safely get to a hospital in time, said Dr. Harrington.
“Many of them deliver unsafely, without birth attendants in a hygienic environment, with no life-saving resources available,” she said.
The Global Nutrition Cluster, a group of aid agencies working in Gaza, found in a report last month that more than 90 percent of children under the age of 2 and pregnant and lactating women, in both northern Gaza and the southern city of Rafah, face severe food poverty.
said Ms. al-Kurd that her greatest desire during pregnancy was for tomatoes, which are very scarce in northern Gaza. On her birthday, in November, her husband Saleh was determined to find her.
Hours later, when he finally returned home — holding a bag of very expensive tomatoes that he bought at the only store that sold them — his wife was “happier than she was when I bought her gold ring for her birthday last year,” he. said in a phone call on Friday.
Like Ms. al-Kurd, Aya Saada, who is seven months pregnant with her second child, said she has not been able to find fruits or vegetables to eat in recent months. He added that he does not always have filtered water to drink. “I’m always dizzy and nauseous and I’m always tired,” said Ms. Saada, 23, who took refuge in a hospital in northern Gaza.
“You should gain weight during your pregnancy,” says Ms. Saada said in a voice message on Friday. “But instead, I’m losing weight.” he added.
Weak mothers give birth to weak babies, says Dr. Harrington, and pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers face a particularly high risk of malnutrition.
“If you’re malnourished, you’re more likely to be anemic,” he says. “You’re missing out on all kinds of micronutrients that you need to grow a baby safely.”
Pregnant women who were injured in the bombing or contracted infectious diseases – which are spreading rapidly throughout Gaza – also face an increased risk of miscarriage and stillbirth, added Dr. Harrington.
“When mothers are sick, then their babies can get sick too, and that increases birth rates,” he said. “Because women don’t have prenatal care, you don’t encounter problems.”
said Ms. Saada said her biggest fear — calling it the only thing on her mind — is that her baby will be born with health issues because she lacked nutritious food and clean water during pregnancy. “It was not possible to prepare for the arrival of my baby,” she said. “We’re just looking for something to eat.”
“The food I eat now is not healthy,” said Kholoud Saada, 34, who is nine months pregnant and sheltering, with her four children, in a tent at a school in northern Gaza. (She is not related to Aya Saada.) “There is no healthy food in the markets today, no chicken or fish,” she said. “There is no food suitable for a pregnant woman,” he added in a voice message on Friday.
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting from Haifa, Israel, and Like Gupta from New York.
