Over 40% of Pregnant, Breastfeeding Women Who Visit Save the Children's Gaza Clinics Are Malnourished

Save the Children on Monday released a report outlining the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza for pregnant and breastfeeding women.

The organization said that 43% of pregnant and breastfeeding women who showed up to its clinics in Gaza last month were malnourished, which represented a threefold increase since March, when the Israeli military imposed a total siege on the area.

"Since April, staff at Save the Children's two primary healthcare centers operating in Gaza have reported monthly increases in the number of pregnant and breastfeeding women found to be malnourished, with food, water and fuel almost entirely unavailable," said Save the Children. "Poor nutrition and malnutrition during pregnancy can cause anaemia, preeclampsia, hemorrhage, and death in mothers, lead to stillbirth, low birthweight, stunted growth, and developmental delays for children."

Instead of breastfeeding, said Save the Children, many mothers are resorting to giving their babies water mixed with ground chickpeas or tahini, which the organization noted were poor substitutes for breast milk or baby formula.

"Mothers are arriving at our clinics hungry, exhausted, and terrified their babies won't survive," said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children's regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. "Some are asking for formula so their baby can still be fed if they die. These are realities no mother should ever have to face."

Alhendawi went on to say that "extreme stress can disrupt breastfeeding" and that "displacement and hunger in Gaza are taking a devastating toll on all mothers" in the region. Save the Children then called upon the Israeli government to lift its blockade of aid supplies into Gaza and give international humanitarian organizations license to help millions of people currently facing acute starvation and other health threats.

Save the Children is not the first organization to point out the crisis facing pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders last month similarly reported that "the number of people enrolled for malnutrition" at its Gaza City clinic "has quadrupled since May 18, while rates of severe malnutrition in children under 5 have tripled in the last two weeks alone." In all, Doctors Without Borders estimated that 25% of children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding women at the clinic were malnourished.

Amande Bazerolle, the Doctors Without Borders head of emergency response in Gaza, accused the Israeli government of deliberately inflicting starvation on the people living there.

"What we are seeing is unconscionable; an entire population being deliberately cut off from food and water, all while the Israeli forces commit daily massacres as people scramble for scraps of food at distribution sites," Bazerolle said. "Any shred of humanity in Gaza has been wiped out in the ongoing genocide."