Kathmandu: Maya Sangah, 27 from Chautara district, gave birth to a baby girl a week after the massive earth quake struck Nepal on April 25.
She was lucky to get medical care from a relief team who was camping in her village. Huddled inside a makeshift tent, and taken care by family members, the mother and baby are fine.
But not all expecting mothers are as lucky as Sangah. Caught up in one of the worst natural disasters, many pregnant women are living in miserable conditions without shelter, food and medical care. With many medical clinics destroyed in the quake, and existing hospitals overwhelmed by patients, these women face huge risks to their health.
Aid agencies estimates a total of 126,000 pregnant women in Nepal are at risk, and in need of urgent medical care. In the coming four weeks, 14,000 women are expected to give birth in Nepal. An estimated 2,000 of them are at risk of experiencing complications that require emergency obstetric care, according to CARE International, an aid agency.
“More than 15% of these pregnant women will experience some form of life-threatening complication during delivery if they don’t receive medical aid as soon as possible,” says Carolyn Baer, NGO CARE international’s Senior Technical Advisor for Sexual and Reproductive Health in Emergencies.
Dr. Baburam Marasini, Director of Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, Ministry of Health, Nepal told Gulf News that lots of women have had miscarriages and premature labour due to the earthquake and following aftershocks.
“We are trying to collect data on stillborn babies and abortions due to the quake,” said Marasini.
Even before the earthquake Nepal had one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, with 170 out of 100,000 women dying during pregnancy or childbirth, according to CARE.
The main challenge encountered by aid organisations is lack of access to remote but hardest-hit areas. Local media reports say in Makwanpur district alone, 200 pregnant and post-partum women are living in makeshift camps.
“Pregnant women and new mothers need utmost care. But in this chaotic situation, they remain the most vulnerable,” a government medical relief worker told Gulf News.
Vanda Lengkong, Disaster Management Specialist at Plan International said their volunteers are trying to extend special care to pregnant women in the 13 VDC’s in Sindhupalchok where they are supplying aid.
Dr. Marasini said government is distributing Minimum Reproductive health packages to all VCDs that can be used for home delivery and in damaged clinics. “We have asked for more supplies from international agencies to cope with the demand,” said the official.
CARE said they have started distributing reproductive health kits to villages in Gorkha this week that include essential medicines and supplies for birthing attendants to handle medical complications in delivery.
— The writer is a senior reporter with Xpress — a sister publication of Gulf News.