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Afghan women dying in childbirth at staggering rates
(CNN) -- With maternal mortality rates among the globe's worst, Afghanistan is one of the riskiest places in the world to be pregnant. According to a recent United Nations study, 1,600 women die in Afghanistan in every 100,000 live births. In comparison, only 12 deaths per 100,000 are recorded in the United States. But in the remote Afghan province of Badakshan, high in the northeast mountains of Afghanistan, the situation is even worse. The study found that more women of child-bearing age -- 64 percent -- die in pregnancy and childbirth there than has been recorded anywhere else in the world. The hospital in the Badakshan capital of Faizabad is the only one for a hundred miles and the only place where pregnant women can get medical help. Dr. Hajira Zia is the head of gynocology and obstetrics at the Faizabad hospital with a staff of just five. She has 10 beds, but often treats as many as 30 patients at a time. Without blood and drug supplies or incubators, saving lives is often a losing battle. On one day, no newborns were at the hospital -- they had all died. "We don't have normal delivery," Zia said. "Patients come with complications. Every month we have maybe 70 or 80" (patients with complications). Years of conflict have drained money and resources from this region, with almost no investment in health care. Now aid agencies and the United Nations have built a new clinic for women and children next door to the main hospital. But for most women in the region, treatment at the clinic is not a simple option. Many men are reluctant to have their wives attended to by strangers. And if cultural obstacles are not in front of women, geographical ones are. The high mountains and treacherous roads make traveling difficult. Most people have no transport, while a lucky few have mules. And when winter comes, some villages will be cut off completely. 'I'm afraid what might happen to me'In the past 15 years in the village of Hazar Meshi, five of the women in the Saferbeg family have died in childbirth. The family celebrated the arrival of a new baby just weeks ago, even as they worried over another family member who was pregnant. Gul Shan, 28, is due to deliver her fifth child in about two months, and she is anxious.
"I can't sleep for worry," Shan said through a translator. "My sister-in-law took three days to deliver her baby. I'm afraid what might happen to me." She has a good reason to be fearful: U.N. statistics show that if a mother dies in childbirth, the infant has only a one-in-four chance of reaching its first birthday. In the village of Hazar Meshi, more than 20 women have died giving birth in the past five years. Now, says one of the village's elder women, many young girls don't want to have any more children. Anar Gul says she has lost three of her six children, two of them when they were just a few days old. And she is angry. "We people don't get any help from the United Nations," Gul said via a translator. "People die hopeless here. We can't get to a hospital. And the U.N. and the government don't care. Only the rich get help, not us poor people."
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