They said by getting married I will have a better life,” Alea said. “When I told my father I do not want to get married, my father and grandmother beat me with a water pipe. Child marriage is increasingly being used as a coping mechanism by impoverished families. Kanem’s visit, she spoke to women at a UNFPA-supported shelter. Women’s and girls’ vulnerability to violence has greatly escalated under the country’s crisis.ĭuring Dr. “It is heartbreaking to see fellow members of the human family in such dire conditions." But in Yemen, I witnessed the devastation of malnutrition and hunger, with newborn babies on feeding tubes and mothers weakened by fear and exhaustion,” Dr. “I've been in many maternity wards, and they are usually a place of joy. Malnutrition puts both women in childbirth and newborn babies at serious risk. “The baby stayed in the hospital for a couple of days as I did not have enough breast milk to feed her,” Hafsa said. When she delivered her daughter months later, the girl weighed only 1.8 kg. I was given medicines to supplement my diet, and I was advised to eat meat, vegetables and fruits.”Īrtwork adorns the walls of a women's shelter. © UNFPA Yemenīut good nutrition was beyond reach due to her family’s low income. I could not stand straight,” 33-year-old Hafsa told UNFPA during Dr. “When I came to receive antenatal care at Al Shaab Hospital, I was very weak and pale. Currently 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are acutely malnourished, and these numbers could double if humanitarian funding does not materialize. Pregnant and breastfeeding women are especially vulnerable during food insecurity. Natalia Kanem during her recent three-day visit to the country.
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“The situation is catastrophic,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Today, a woman in Yemen dies during childbirth every two hours, almost always from preventable causes. Only 20 per cent of functioning health facilities are providing maternal and child health services. The pandemic has only aggravated things, with roughly 15 per cent of the health system shifted to deal with COVID-19 cases. Kanem speaks to women in a maternity ward, where patients spoke Kanem speaks to women in a maternity ward, where patients spoke vividly of their fears. © UNFPA Yemenĭr. Currently only half of all health facilities are functioning.ĭr. The country’s long-running conflict has depleted the health system. In a few minutes, she had delivered a healthy baby boy.”Ĭhildbirth can be harrowing in even the best of times but the cascade of humanitarian crises in Yemen have made the journey to motherhood more dangerous than ever.
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I pulled her and rushed her inside a car. “When I arrived at the gate, I found the pregnant woman lying down and crying for help. “Bullets were coming from all the corners of the street,” she recounted. I heard a mother screaming at the gate,” midwife Shrook Khalid Saeed told UNFPA this week at the Al Shaab Hospital in the district of Crater, in Yemen.īy the time she arrived at the entrance to the hospital, hostilities in the area had flared and a gunfight had broken out. © UNFPA YemenĬRATER, Yemen – “It was the morning of a normal working day before fighting escalated close to the hospital. Natalia Kanem about a harrowing delivery. Midwife Shrook Khalid Saeed tells UNFPA Executive Director Dr.