Thousands of women come to the MSF maternity clinic during their pregnancies. As in most conflict-affected countries, the healthcare system in Yemen has collapsed. This makes women and children particularly vulnerable to health complications. In Mocha, one of the ways this manifests itself is the unavailability of services for pregnant women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are the only 24\/7 maternity and pediatric departments in the entire west coast region, which covers just over half a million people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MSF clinics in Yemen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In July 2024, MSF integrated maternity services into Mocha General Hospital. This has allowed them to expand the services they can provide, including by opening a new comprehensive obstetric and neonatal care unit. Today, the maternity ward has 28 beds for labor and delivery, including neonatal and intensive care beds. Before this move, MSF provided maternal care from the field hospital that was initially set up in Mocha in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The west coast of Yemen is a rural area with fronts to the north and east. Women with high-risk or complicated pregnancies sometimes travel a three-hour journey to reach the Mocha hospital. It is expected that 15% of births will have obstetric complications, which, if not treated promptly, could be fatal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The risks and complications faced by women in the region are easily preventable, but without consistent and accessible prenatal and postnatal care, pregnancy becomes more dangerous. Health care facilities in the region are poorly equipped, untrained, and in short supply. As a result, women have no choice but to travel long distances over poor roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Challenges for mothers in Yemen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are so many challenges for mothers in Yemen, most of them linked to the war that makes access to the few remaining health facilities very complicated. That is why the location of this maternity hospital is so critical, and it covers a large area of \u200b\u200bthe west coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The complications women face can be treated by the hospital and its staff if patients arrive in time. However, The Director of the clinic insists that there should be a first line of care closer to home. Considering the population of the west coast, about 1,300 women are expected to give birth each month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yemen: Why can\u2019t mothers get to hospitals?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many factors that hinder a woman\u2019s ability to reach a hospital on the West Coast: ongoing displacement due to conflict, numerous checkpoints along the roads, poor economic conditions, and the need to obtain formal consent from a male family member for any medical procedure, including a caesarean section. This leaves expectant mothers with little choice but to give birth in unsafe conditions, putting their lives and that of their baby at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Behind the door, where non-medical male staff are not allowed, the maternity ward is a feminine world of dignity and solidarity that beats to the rhythm of midwives. Since the midwifery services were transferred to Mocha General Hospital, more than 1,600 women have given birth safely in their wards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thousands of women come to the MSF maternity clinic during their pregnancies. As in most conflict-affected countries, the healthcare system in Yemen has collapsed….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2959,2993],"tags":[6522,6519,6520,6521,2424],"class_list":["post-22525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-healthcare","category-life","tag-clinics","tag-doctors-without-borders","tag-mother","tag-msf","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22527,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22525\/revisions\/22527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}