Main Category: Pregnancy / Obstetrics
Also Included In: Aid / Disasters;  Nursing / Midwifery;  Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 22 Feb 2010 - 0:00 PST

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Relief organizations and medical workers in Haiti are increasingly struggling to find enough doctors and supplies to attend to women in labor in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake, the Miami Herald reports. Hospitals have become overcrowded and have been forced to turn away pregnant women, according to the Herald. "People here are giving birth under the absolute worst conditions," Jonathan Evans, a pediatric gastroenterologist volunteering at a University of Miami field hospital, said, adding that women "can't find access to midwives. Little problems become big problems."

There is growing concern about the 63,000 pregnant women currently living in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, where more than 7,000 women are expected to give birth this month. "If we don't act, we are foreseeing an increase in the already obscene maternal mortality rate," the World Health Organization's Cristian Morales said.

According to the most recent data from UNICEF and WHO, Haiti's maternal mortality rate before the earthquake was 670 maternal deaths per 100,000 births each year, compared with 150 per 100,000 in the neighboring Dominican Republic and 11 per 100,000 in the U.S.

Prior to the earthquake, about one in five pregnant women delivered in a hospital, often only if complications arose, according to Jean-Edouard Viala, chief of staff in obstetrics at the Port-au-Prince General Hospital. The majority of women gave birth at home. In the four weeks since the earthquake, the hospital has delivered more than 100 infants in its maternity tents, and surgeons have performed more than 27 caesarean sections, Viala said.

In addition, some relief organizations have been forced to turn away pregnant women because they did not bring obstetricians or the proper equipment for deliveries. "We came here with earthquake specialists -- orthopedics and surgeons," Morales said, adding, "In an emergency, they can deliver babies. But we need to replace adequate facilities for obstetrics and gynecology."

Marjorie Michel, the Haitian minister in charge of women's affairs, said that her office is working to address some of the concerns and that the government will set up special tents where deliveries can be performed in sanitary conditions. Michel's office also is working to provide pregnant women with nutritious food, and provide new mothers with diapers, sheets and blankets. WHO also is expected to send more obstetricians to Haiti, according to a spokesperson for the organization (McGrory, Miami Herald, 2/19).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

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