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Women in Rural Afghanistan Remain At Risk For Death in Childbirth
Aired December 06, 2002 - 14:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Mothers in Afghanistan fear for their lives and those of their unborn children. Afghanistan has the worst mortality rate for new mothers in the world.
CNN's Diana Muriel takes us to one province considered the worst of the worst.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is one of the worst places in the world to be a woman.
More women die in child birth here in Badakhshan province, northern Afghanistan, than have been recorded anywhere else in the world. This hospital in the capital, Feyzabad, is the only one for 100 miles. The only place where pregnant women can get help.
Dr. Hajir Zia is head of gynecology and obstetrics with a staff of just five. She has 10, beds but often treats as many as 30 patients. Without incubators, without blood and with few drugs, it's all she can do to save the mothers.
When we visited, there were no newborns. All these women lost their babies.
DR. HAJIR ZIA, FEYZABAD HOSPITAL: We don't have normal delivery. A lot of patient come with complication. Every month we have maybe 70, 80 and 40 complicated patients.
MURIEL (voice-over): Years of conflict have drained money and resources in this region with almost no investment in health care. Now eight agencies and the United Nations have built a new mother and child clinic alongside the main hospital.
But for most women in this region, treatment here is simply not an option. Many men are reluctant to have their wives attended to by strangers. Anyway, the high mountains and treacherous roads, another legacy of the war, make traveling difficult.
Most people have no transport. The lucky few have mules. Now winter is coming and many villages, like this one, will be cut off completely.
(on camera): This is the home of the Saffa Beg (ph) family that. Over the past 15 years they've lost five of their women in child birth. The family is celebrating the arrival of a new baby just two weeks ago. But one of the wives is pregnant and she's worried.
(voice-over): Twenty-eight-year-old Gul Shan is due to deliver her fifth child in around two months' time.
GUL SHAN, MOTHER (through translator): I can't sleep for worry. My sister-in-law took three days to deliver her baby. I'm afraid what might happen to me.
MURIEL: She has good reason to be fearful. Statistics show that if a mother dies in child birth, the infant has only a 1 in 4 chance of reaching its first birthday.
This new mother and baby are thriving, delivered with the help of more experienced women in the village. Midwives are unheard of here, but in this village more than 20 women have died giving birth in the past five years.
Now, says one of the elder women, many young girls don't want to have anymore children. Her own daughter has lost three of her own children, two when they were just a few days old and she is angry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We people don't get any help from the United Nations. People die hopeless here. You can't get to hospital and the U.N. and the government don't care. Only the rich get help, not us poor people.
MURIEL (on camera): For the women of this village, high in the mountains, the new clinic at Feyzabad is almost irrelevant. They have little chance of reaching it if there were to be complications in their pregnancies and so the women here continue to suffer and some to die.
Diana Muriel, CNN, Hazar Meshi, Badakhshan, Afghanistan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Childbirth>
Aired December 6, 2002 - 14:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Mothers in Afghanistan fear for their lives and those of their unborn children. Afghanistan has the worst mortality rate for new mothers in the world.
CNN's Diana Muriel takes us to one province considered the worst of the worst.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is one of the worst places in the world to be a woman.
More women die in child birth here in Badakhshan province, northern Afghanistan, than have been recorded anywhere else in the world. This hospital in the capital, Feyzabad, is the only one for 100 miles. The only place where pregnant women can get help.
Dr. Hajir Zia is head of gynecology and obstetrics with a staff of just five. She has 10, beds but often treats as many as 30 patients. Without incubators, without blood and with few drugs, it's all she can do to save the mothers.
When we visited, there were no newborns. All these women lost their babies.
DR. HAJIR ZIA, FEYZABAD HOSPITAL: We don't have normal delivery. A lot of patient come with complication. Every month we have maybe 70, 80 and 40 complicated patients.
MURIEL (voice-over): Years of conflict have drained money and resources in this region with almost no investment in health care. Now eight agencies and the United Nations have built a new mother and child clinic alongside the main hospital.
But for most women in this region, treatment here is simply not an option. Many men are reluctant to have their wives attended to by strangers. Anyway, the high mountains and treacherous roads, another legacy of the war, make traveling difficult.
Most people have no transport. The lucky few have mules. Now winter is coming and many villages, like this one, will be cut off completely.
(on camera): This is the home of the Saffa Beg (ph) family that. Over the past 15 years they've lost five of their women in child birth. The family is celebrating the arrival of a new baby just two weeks ago. But one of the wives is pregnant and she's worried.
(voice-over): Twenty-eight-year-old Gul Shan is due to deliver her fifth child in around two months' time.
GUL SHAN, MOTHER (through translator): I can't sleep for worry. My sister-in-law took three days to deliver her baby. I'm afraid what might happen to me.
MURIEL: She has good reason to be fearful. Statistics show that if a mother dies in child birth, the infant has only a 1 in 4 chance of reaching its first birthday.
This new mother and baby are thriving, delivered with the help of more experienced women in the village. Midwives are unheard of here, but in this village more than 20 women have died giving birth in the past five years.
Now, says one of the elder women, many young girls don't want to have anymore children. Her own daughter has lost three of her own children, two when they were just a few days old and she is angry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We people don't get any help from the United Nations. People die hopeless here. You can't get to hospital and the U.N. and the government don't care. Only the rich get help, not us poor people.
MURIEL (on camera): For the women of this village, high in the mountains, the new clinic at Feyzabad is almost irrelevant. They have little chance of reaching it if there were to be complications in their pregnancies and so the women here continue to suffer and some to die.
Diana Muriel, CNN, Hazar Meshi, Badakhshan, Afghanistan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Childbirth>
