Midwife tells of Israel's crimes against Gaza mothers and babies, with Heba Al-Nashef

Across the entire Gaza Strip, there are more than 15,000 pregnant women on the verge of catastrophic levels of hunger.

There has been a rise in premature births and maternal deaths – and many women are forced to give birth without access to medical support.

In early November, the United Nations agency for sexual and reproductive health warned that only two out of 20 health service points and the remaining hospitals in north Gaza “are still functioning as they struggle to operate without supplies, fuel, food or water.”

This means that for the thousands of pregnant and breastfeeding women in north Gaza – if they survive the daily massacres and airstrikes carried out by the Israeli military – access to prenatal and neonatal health care is heavily restricted.

And complicated and high-risk pregnancies linked with negative outcomes have increased, while access to safe childbirth services has dramatically decreased, especially in the north. Transportation challenges and a shortage of medical personnel have compounded the crisis, the agency says.

Basic hygiene, medications and safe birthing supplies have been denied entry by the Israeli army, with thousands of supply kits stockpiled in warehouses in Egypt and Jordan for months, the UN says.

Physicians published an alarming commentary in a recent edition of The Lancet medical journal, focusing on the collapse of the healthcare sector, specifically toward labor, delivery and postpartum care.

“The near-total collapse of the health-care infrastructure, coupled with the lack of access to essential medical services, has resulted in a tragic surge in preventable maternal and neonatal deaths,” the authors write.

Heba Al-Nashef, a Canada-based midwife and clinician, joined The Electronic Intifada Podcast to talk about the impact that Israel’s 14 months of attacks on Gaza have had on women and newborns in particular, and how medical providers are forced to improvise care under genocidal conditions.

She worked for six weeks at Al Awda Hospital in Nuseirat, Gaza earlier this year.

Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/midwife-tells-israels-crimes-against-gaza-mothers-and-babies

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