Birth Under Bombs: 9 Months of Hell

• CrossFireArabia
• July 12, 2024

Imagine being pregnant and knowing you are three times more likely to miscarry.
Imagine being pregnant and knowing you are three times more likely to die in childbirth.
Imagine being pregnant and experiencing the fear of death every single day.
Imagine being pregnant and feeling like the world has completely forgotten you.

This is the hell pregnant women in Gaza are living through every day.

In the 9 months, or 40 weeks, that the violence in Gaza has now raged on, women there have conceived, miscarried, and birthed their babies. Instead of spending 9 months safely and hopefully preparing for the birth of their baby, these women have spent the entirety of their pregnancy in constant fear.

22-year-old Diana discovered she was pregnant shortly after violence escalated last October and gave birth to her son, Yaman, under intense bombing and gunfire late last week.

“I had a difficult labour. I was so frightened as the bombing was intense and didn’t stop even for a minute. My mother was so afraid for me and the baby – she prayed and prayed that we’d still be alive by dawn.

“I gave birth to my son, Yaman at about 2am. There was no special care for the baby when he was born, and he was not fully examined. He has jaundice now which has affected his brain.”

Diana is not alone. Over 50,000 women are currently pregnant in Gaza. Around 180 are due to give birth today, but not all of them will make it that far. Pregnant women in Gaza have experienced so much trauma since October that they are three times more likely to miscarry than they were before.

For those who defy the odds and manage to carry their pregnancy to full-term, the likelihood is they will be forced to give birth in a tent, a temporary shelter, or even in the streets amid rubble. They will do this without painkillers, while bombs continue to drop around them, knowing that they are now three times more likely to die giving birth.

Expressing concern on forgetting women and their experiences in this conflict, Hiba Al Hejazi, CARE’s Regional Advocacy Advisor for the MENA Region said: “It’s abhorrent that women, and their experiences in this conflict, have largely been forgotten.

The international community has to step up and put them front and centre. We need a gendered response to this conflict, one that prioritises the needs and experiences of women, and funds the women leading their communities through crisis. We urgently need governments to use their diplomatic powers and bring an end to a conflict that is destroying lives, many that have only just begun.”

CARE International’s Palestinian partner in Gaza, Juzoor, has set up clinics offering ante- and post-natal care, and mobilised volunteers from its network of midwives to assist vulnerable women to deliver births safely in their shelters with specialised equipment. CARE has also distributed 5,500 Baby Kits, containing essential products such as baby clothes and sterilising wipes for pregnant mothers, many of whom have lost everything.

This is an article reproduced CARE International on the situation of pregnant women in Gaza. For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].