When Wafaa al-Kurd was about to give birth, she said, she weighed less than before she became pregnant and survived on rice and artificial juice.
She gave birth to a nearly six-pound girl, named Tayma, just two weeks ago, she said. Since then, her husband has spent his days scouring the markets in northern Gaza, where the family lives, trying to find enough food for his wife to breastfeed and keep Tayma alive.
Nearly 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza suffer from malnutrition, dehydration and a lack of proper healthcare, according to Gaza’s health ministry. In a statement on Friday, the ministry said around 5,000 women in Gaza give birth each month in “harsh, unsafe and unsanitary conditions as a result of shelling and displacement”.
The ministry added that some 9,000 women, including thousands of mothers and pregnant women, have been killed since Israel’s shelling and invasion began in early October.
The United Nations and aid agencies have warned that famine is looming in the besieged enclave, where health officials said at least 25 people, most of them children, have died of malnutrition and dehydration in recent days.
Dr. Deborah Harrington, an obstetrician working at Al Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, said the expectant and new mothers she treated were not receiving nearly enough pre- and postnatal care, putting both their lives and the lives of their babies at risk.
Some of the new mothers he spoke to said they were forced to give birth on the street, in their shelters or in their cars because they couldn’t get safely to a hospital in time, Dr. Harrington said.
“Many of them give birth unsafely, without birth attendants in a healthy environment, without lifesaving resources available,” she said.
The Global Nutrition Cluster, a group of humanitarian organizations working in Gaza, found in a report last month that more than 90 percent of children under the age of 2 and pregnant and lactating women in both northern Gaza and the southern city of Rafa, were facing severe food poverty. .
Ms al-Kurd said her biggest pregnancy craving was tomatoes, which were very rare in northern Gaza. On her birthday in November, her husband, Saleh, was determined to get her some.
Hours later, when he finally returned home — clutching a bag of super-expensive tomatoes bought at the only store that sold them — his wife was “happier than when I bought her a gold ring for her birthday last year,” he told telephone contact on Friday.
Like Ms al-Kurd, Aya Saada, who is 7 months pregnant with her second child, said she has not been able to find fruit or vegetables to eat in recent months. He added that he did not always have filtered water to drink. “I’m always dizzy and nauseous and I’m always tired,” said Ms. Saada, 23, who is staying at a hospital in northern Gaza.
“You’re supposed to gain weight during your pregnancy,” Ms. Saada said in a voicemail on Friday. “But instead, I lose weight.” she added.
Vulnerable mothers give birth to vulnerable babies, Dr. Harrington said, and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers face particularly high risks of malnutrition.
“If you’re malnourished, you’re more likely to have anemia,” he said. “You’ll be missing out on all the kinds of micronutrients you need to grow a baby safely.”
Pregnant women injured in the shelling or infected with infectious diseases – which are spreading rapidly across Gaza – also face much higher risks of miscarriage and stillbirth, Dr Harrington added.
“When mothers are sick, then their babies can get sick, and that increases stillbirth rates,” he said. “Because women don’t have prenatal care, you can’t have problems.”
Ms Saada said her biggest fear – calling it the only thing on her mind – was that her baby would be born with health problems because she lacked nutritious food and clean water during pregnancy. “It is not possible to prepare for the arrival of my baby,” she said. “Now we’re just looking for food to eat.”
“The food I eat now is not healthy,” said Kholoud Saada, 34, who is nine months pregnant and living with her four children in a tent at a school in northern Gaza. (No relation to Aya Saada.) “There is no healthy food in the markets anymore, not even chicken or fish,” he said. “There is no food suitable for a pregnant woman,” she added in a voice message on Friday.
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reports from Haifa, Israel and Gaya Gupta from New York.
