Women in Gaza give birth amid bomb shelling

Patients at the hospital have also described the terror of giving birth amid air strikes and women have spoken of watering down formula to feed their babies as aid trickles into the strip. “I felt so scared as I tried breastfeeding my newborn, I was even shivering. My baby would not latch. Eventually he stopped taking my milk,” said Fadwa, 30, who has been displaced and gave birth by emergency caesarean section under bombardment from the Israeli military. “I had to resort to formula, which was not an easy task. In order to make the formula last longer, I had to use less than the recommended amount. I barely had access to one tin of formula per week. And sometimes once every two weeks. I would ration the amount to make more bottles,” she said. It comes as the latest attack on Gaza hit a UN school, sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians, killing at least 33 people including 23 women and children. Missiles hit the second and third floors of the al-Sardi school in Deir al-Balah, where the UN said about 6,000 people were living. Israeli military said Hamas militants were operating from the school. With heavy bombardment continuing across the strip, many pregnant women are finding it difficult if not impossible to get to hospital, which is putting lives at risk, doctors have warned. “Sometimes they barely make it in an ambulance. Which causes the patient to come in with further complications,” said Dr Raed Al Saudi, head of obstetrics and gynaecology at Al-Awda Hospital, Nuseirat, which is supported by ActionAid Ireland. He said many women with underlying conditions or other issues booked in for planned C-section are now displaced and so cannot attend. “We have cases of women coming from their homes with excessive bleeding. Cases of abruptio placentae or placenta previa, or postpartum bleeding. This obviously poses a great risk on the patient.” He added: “We also see older women. These women suffer constant bleeding and would need surgeries. They would need curettage and biopsy operations. We do not have doctors to read the results of these pathology biopsy. And that, of course, is a major problem.” Mai, aged 26, was displaced and staying in a tent when she went into labour and was referred to the hospital, which was then bombed and shelled as she was giving birth. “There was no medication and no healthy food during my pregnancy. The prices were high and there was nothing available, even flour was not available at the beginning of the war,” she said.