In 2021, 51 per cent of women admitted for maternity care at Abs hospital were malnourished, while four per cent had severe acute malnutrition.
In 2022, this rose to 64 per cent, with 6 per cent suffering from severe acute malnutrition. By February 2024, a massive 68 per cent of women admitted to the maternity department were malnourished.
Sixty kilometres away from Abs, in the MSF-supported Al-Qanawis mother and child hospital in Al-Hodeidah governorate, it is a similar picture. In 2023, 47 per cent of women admitted were malnourished, rising to 49 per cent in February 2024.
“Pregnant women with malnutrition are at a greater risk of complications during pregnancy and delivery, the main one being iron deficiency or anaemia,” says Dr Pato. “A malnourished woman has a high risk of having a malnourished baby. It will also be harder for her to breastfeed her child.”
The risk of malnourished mothers giving birth to babies who are themselves susceptible to malnutrition is clear from MSF’s nutrition programme in Abs, where 24 per cent of all admissions in 2023 were children under six months old.
Fonte original msf.org
