Reuters Videos
Doctor fights to save premature babies in Donbass
STORY: In the last specialized maternity hospital still under Ukrainian control in the eastern region of Donbass, sandbags line the windows. But as war rages, newborns are warmly welcomed into the world. The center is a wartime lifeline for baby women.Dr. Ivan Tsyganok leads the center of Pokrovsk, just 25 miles from the front line. that’s over half a million people. Now we are the only one (perinatal center) left. “The center is estimated to serve 340,000 people, like first mother Viktoriya. The fearful 16-year-old says she finds it hard to stay calm as the sound of the shooting is affecting her nerves. Dr. Tsyganok fears that the stress of living under Russian attack has led to an increase in the number of premature babies, the center’s data collection suggests.The research, which was shared with Reuters, has been observed elsewhere in conflict zones. Katya Buravtsova’s child is one such premature baby Born at 28 weeks, doctors say Illiusha would have had little chance of survival had he not been born at the center and had had access to an incubator and specialist care. “We want peace so that our children do not have to see what is happening now. We just want peace.” “The scariest thing is the uncertainty. What happens next.” In 2021, around 12% of just over 1,000 babies born at the center were premature – born before 37 weeks. This rate compares to a Ukrainian average of around 9% , according to the World Health Organization. But since the February 24 invasion, the rate has risen to 16.5%. Although the total number of births in Pokrovsk has also dropped dramatically, due to the flight of pregnant women .Doctors at the center began collecting data on how war affects pregnancy soon after it opened.The center opened in 2015, a year after the conflict began in the region.In 2017, a study was in progress oxygen and nutrients are not sufficiently transferred to the fetus, which appeared at a rate four times higher than that observed in a control group of 38 women.Children born to very stressed mothers have were also discovered. Russia denies targeting civilians, m But many Ukrainian towns and villages were left in ruins.
