#high risk of pregnancy

[motherhoodhospital]

High Risk Pregnancy Treatment Specialist in Ahmedabad

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[coolianne-whoore]

And another thing: if you have vagina, and ESPECIALLY if you tend to fuck dicks, please PLEASE consider getting an IUD if you don’t want kids. We all know they want to ban abortion, but some people don’t know they’re also going after contraceptives. Rn access to contraceptives is protected by only a Supreme Court case (you know like what protected abortion), so that can go away. Contraceptives can be regulated to be in accessible or prohibitively expensive, but they can’t take an IUD out of your body (at least not in the foreseeable future). It’s good for sometimes 5 years.

I want to say this now because I was on the phone with a gyno for like 20 minutes on hold and only got a consultation today (which you sometimes need before they can schedule an appointment) because someone cancelled last minute.

I know people have had bad experiences with the IUD I know people have had excellent experiences. I’m going to document mine step by step so you know some things you can expect, if you’re thinking about it.

For context: i’m 25, have insurance through my job and live in a blue state, so my experience might be different/faster/easier etc. than yours.

[retourpresdetoi]

hey mouthwashing analysts, do we maybe want to think a bit before comparing a full grown man, who is just heavily disabled, to a baby? like a literal infant? especially when there's a stronger metaphorical/psychological/symbolic avatar for the baby and pregnancy already present within the narrative? (multiple even!)

[ovaruling]

i am so sick of this

there is an established relationship between advanced age of the father and risks to the mother, to the pregnancy, to the fetus, and later to the child.

older men’s ticking biological clocks are harmful. their ages literally compound the dangers to women and to the children they have. increased age of fathers is related to things like gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and preterm birth, just to make a few. later health and mental problems have been observed in children of older fathers.

the number of older fathers is increasing. men feel entitled to father children well into elderliness. men also tend to seek out young women with which to have these children. the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. is currently the highest it has been since the 1960s. abortion rights in the U.S. are in extreme peril. this altogether makes the risk to women who reproduce w/ older men much, much greater.

i think we as a society need to start talking about this a bit.

screenshots of additional NYT article under the cut because i couldn’t figure out how to link without the paywall.

[sortofanobsession]

Beyond Frustration (Buddie AU)

I was going through old works and drafts and this idea wasn't exactly requested but it jumped out at me. And figured I hadn't done an Alpha Beta Omega in a while. May do a part 2 if anyone wants it.

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911 Masterlist

Summary: Lawsuit Era A/B/Ω AU where Alpha Eddie marks and bonds Omega Buck after Buck was trapped under the truck. The lawsuit puts their bond, and unknowingly to Eddie, their unborn child, at risk. Eddie learns how big of a mistake he has made in almost the worst way possible. Almost.

Paring: Alpha!Eddie Diaz/Omega!Evan "Buck" Buckley

Word count: 2k+

Content Warning: Anger, Neglect, Hospitalization, A/B/Ω mpreg, Fear, physical violence (Eddie gets slapped), Fear of Miscarriage, High Risk Pregnancy.

Eddie's inner alpha clawed at him as they left the deposition. And all it did was piss him off further. Buck had told that asshole things he'd sworn to keep to himself. The alpha had seen the way his omega's betrayal hurt the whole team. The team that was also very much their pack. Their family. But his alpha clawed at him. He didn't understand why it was acting like that. His mate had betrayed them and their pack. The mate he had taken care of and protected after the omega was injured in the bombing. The one he had bared his soul to and bonded with. No, his inner alpha may be driven by the baser instinct to be with his mate at any cost, but Eddie wasn't going to give in. He should have known better, especially after what happened with Shannon. Shannon had been the mother of his pup. And then came back just to ruin his life again. He had tried to make it work for his secondary nature. To have a real family, a true pack. And that had gone to shit. He'd let his alpha nature trick him again. But fool him once and all that bs. He wasn't going to give in a third time. No.

Buck was struggling. It wasn't unheard of for an omega to be a single parent. But it was well known that a strong bond and loving relationship for a mated omega was ideal. A bonded omega, separated from their mate, especially an alpha mate, under great stress, and being a somewhat rare male omega, was a high risk pregnancy in the making.

During a shift Eddie's inner alpha goes damn near feral. Something is wrong and he knows it. But Eddie had been suppressing his secondary nature for so long, even using medication to further subdue it, his alpha isn't strong enough to make Eddie's more stubborn and supposedly logical side understand. And Eddie does not realize how big a mistake he has made until he gets a terrifying call from Christopher. Carla had gotten a call from the hospital. Buck was not well. And since Carla was the only contact Buck had allowed them to reach out to. Eddie finally realizes what his alpha had been trying to tell him over the last few hours. His alpha nature has been reacting to the bond the shared with his mate. Eddie was just too numb to feel it. And that was a terrifying thought. As mad as he and the others were with the no contact order because of the lawsuit, they still had the slight comfort that Eddie would know if something happened to Buck. When Eddie tells them about the phone call they rush to the hospital.

The second Eddie steps into the hospital he is met with a hard slap. He recoils at first and nearly lashes out when he realizes it’s Maddie. His mate’s beta sister.

“You were supposed to protect him!” She shouts at the alpha. Before Eddie can say anything she has turned her ire on the captain. “You too!” She looks from face to face, every member of the 118. “All of you! You told him he was family! That you would be there for him!”

“Maddie,” Chimney starts but she turns on her heels and disappears behind a set of doors.

The receptionist stone walls them when they try to get any information. Eddie can feel his inner alpha suffering. Eddie was so close to his mate he could just start to feel him. His omega's scent had clung to Maddie. And it tore at the alpha’s heart.

“Eddie,” Carla says as she meets them.

“If you're here, where is Christopher?” Bobby asks. As upset as the captain and his inner alpha was he knew it was nothing compared to what Eddie was feeling. Guilt and fear clouded Eddie's usual scent. Bobby could understand that. The captain had lost a mate before. He knew the panic not knowing created. Eddie wasn't in his right mind now.

“He's with Buck, since they had a sort of bond they hoped it would help. Maddie too.”

“Did it?” Hen asks.

“He's stable, but there is something I need to tell you…”

Eddie hates himself. He would never forgive himself for what he had done. He would grovel and beg Buck to forgive him. He prays to any higher power that would listen to let him fix this. To not take his family from him. He couldn't lose his mate. It would destroy him. He'd spend the rest of his life begging his pups to forgive him. He'd be there for every major milestone for both Christopher and their unborn miracle, if they let him. He was a mess by the time they reached Buck’s room. Maddie glared at the alpha as he entered.

Christopher made his way over to Eddie and buried his face in his father's shirt. Eddie drops to his knees.

“I'm sorry, buddy, I'm so sorry,” the alpha begs. “This never should have happened.”

Once Christopher had calmed down, Carla took him out into the hall to go see the rest of the team.

Maddie leaves to call her parents. She glares at the alpha as she does. The alpha goes over and carefully takes the omega's hand in his. The barely there curve of his pregnant mate’s stomach breaks something in the alpha. It wasn’t prominent, but he had known Buck's body as well as he knew his own. And he could see it now. He doesn't know how he could have missed it at the deposition. Even the omega's scent smelled sweeter. Had his anger clouded his senses that much? He now understands why his inner alpha had been so distressed that day. His pregnant mate was just a few feet from him and he couldn't go to him. The omega had looked so tired and sad, but Eddie had been too bitter to see what the entire situation had been doing to his mate. And Eddie could see it now. Buck was too thin, too pale, for a pregnant omega. He looks fragile and broken. And Eddie just wanted to crawl in the bed beside him. He wanted to scent his mate. Hold him. Do whatever he needed to repair their fragile bond. But before he can do anything but take a shattered breath a woman in a lab coat walks in. She's a beta that smells overly sterile.

“He's sedated,” she says before she even introduces herself. Once she has she levels the alpha with a weary look. “You are his mate, correct? His alpha?”

Eddie nods, barely trusting his voice. “Y-yeah, yes, I am.”

“His sister said you two are bonded, correct?”

“Yes,” Eddie answers, his hand gripping Buck's a bit tighter as he does.

The doctor nods and after making a note in the omega's file she checks Buck’s vitals and compares them to his chart and updates it. Eddie watches her carefully. Only when she is done does she give the alpha any attention again.

“How are they?” Eddie manages to ask.

“He is stable and his condition is slowly improving.”

“So they're okay?”

“As a medically trained first responder, I'm sure you can understand the gravity of the situation at hand,” the doctor starts.

Eddie nods but hopes that by saying nothing the doctor will actually answer his question.

“Did you know about your mate's condition?”

“No,” Eddie half sobs. “I had no idea.”

“Okay,” the doctor says and seems to be considering something before she speaks again. “In cases of neglect like this there is a full investigation,” she says and the alpha has to sit down because to have it put so bluntly was jarring.

“Whatever needs to happen, just please, don't make me leave.”

“Oh as his bonded mate you need to stay, it may be the only thing that keeps his condition from worsening. But I have to legally inform you that your behavior will be heavily monitored and any signs of distress will be dealt with in whatever manner we deem necessary, which may include asking you to leave, and getting the authorities involved if necessary. And if your mate or his family wish to seek legal action, we are obligated to assist them.”

“I don't care what you have to do, I’ll do anything,” Eddie insists. “I just want him to be okay.”

The doctor seems to study the alpha for a full minute.

“I believe you, Mr. Diaz,” she finally says. “And I trust that you being here will not worsen the situation. And if it does that you will act accordingly. I understand that there have been some strenuating circumstances in this particular case. I hope for your sake, and your mate's, that things only get better from here. We will be keeping a close eye on him.”

The doctor excuses herself after that. And what little control Eddie has on his emotions fails. He buries his face in his mate's neck and sobs. He is nothing without Buck. He isn't even a good dad these days without him. He's been trying, but Christopher is still suffering from the after effects of the tsunami and not having his Buck there has made it all the more difficult. The omega had been with him during the terrible experience. It had made the bond the two already had stronger. And Eddie had denied both of them that much needed connection. He was a failure as an alpha. He was a failure as a father. Worst of all, he was a failure as a mate. He neglected his bond and his bonded mate and it nearly cost him everything. He could have lost both his mate and the unborn pup he didn't even know existed. Now that he knows he can't possibly let go. The only reason he would ever leave now was if Buck wanted him to. If his mate couldn't forgive him, the alpha would understand. Eddie sure as hell wasn't ever going to forgive himself.

Eddie wakes up to fingers in his hair and he almost doesn't want to move, but as he inhales the chemically tainted smell of his mate he remembers where he is and why he is there. His head snaps up and he looks into the tired blue eyes of his mate.

“Buck,” is all the alpha manages to say in a broken tone. The numbness that he had felt the past few days gone as the wave of emotions hit him. He can feel their bond again. And it shatters something in him. “I'm sorry.” It's half sobbed and shaken.

Buck had woken up to a weight on his arm that hadn't been there before. The more he thinks, the more he realizes it was a familiar weight. Paired with a feeling he had longed for. His eyes tear up as he inhales and takes in the familiar scent of his mate, but there is something off about it. It has the omega opening his eyes. His alpha is distressed. And yeah, that tracks. The omega blinks tears away as he looks around the hospital room. He has no idea how long he has been there, but by the way Eddie is passed out curled against him it had been a while. And he let his tears fall because Eddie was there. His mate had not only come to his bedside, but was pressed against his side like any distance between was unbearable. After so long without his mate, and now his senses were flooded with him, the omega finally felt some semblance of home. He felt complete again. His hands itched to feel that electricity he always felt when they touched. His hands card through the alpha's unkempt mess of hair.

The omega’s heart clenches at the the sheer level of pain and devastation in the alpha’s voice. Buck gets a real good look at his partner’s face and he looks so raw and broken that the omega wants nothing more than to make things better. But Buck can't forget the reason they are there. His eyes move to his own stomach. Before he can even voice his fears, fears Eddie must feel through their bond, the alpha’s hand rubs along the sheet covered swell.

“Pup’s all right,” Eddie says, his voice now filled with conviction. The alpha's voice is in Buck's ear. The omega can feel the heat of his mate's hand through the fabric on his stomach. The combined sensation and the renewed feelings coursing through him sends a shiver down his spine and sends his heart soaring. It must show in his heart monitor at the way the alpha beside him chuckles. It nearly doubled when he feels Eddie's lips gently brush across the bonding mark on the omega's neck. The feeling of love and safety he has missed for weeks is damn near overwhelming.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie tells him again. And between the look on the alpha's face and the feeling of guilt that flows through their bond has Buck believing him. Combined with the omega's heightened emotions and hormones, Buck couldn't imagine holding any of it against the alpha. Not really.

“I know,” Buck tells him, his own tone a little sad. It's sad, because this whole situation could have been avoided if they had just tried to talk. And he thinks Eddie must feel the same way at the way the alpha’s hand shifts from rubbing the omega's swollen belly to pulling Buck closer to him. And Buck goes willing shifting until his back is flush against the alpha's chest. The alpha protectively curled around him.

“I love you, you know that right? More than anything in the world,” Eddie says.

“Except Christopher,” Buck corrects.

“I love him and this little one,” Eddie states, his hand gently pressing against the swell of the unborn pup. “But that's a different kind of love,” the alpha insists.

The omega swoons a bit at that. He had spent the last few weeks terrified of Eddie rejecting not just him but the pup as well. The relief that Eddie still loved him and wanted him, but that he wanted their pup too was amazing. That the alpha was happy to not just claim the pup as his but say he already loved them. It was like having a large weight removed from the omega's shoulders. That fear had been like an albatross around his neck. And Eddie must feel it all through the bond because, again, Eddie holds him tighter. The alpha’s lips press against the skin behind the omega's ear.

“I'm here now. Not going anywhere.”

The alpha holds the omega as he cries but it doesn't last long. Because Buck is still exhausted and Eddie is warm. The omega is more comfortable and feels better than he has in weeks, maybe months. Buck falls asleep sheltered in his mate's arms.

The alpha tenses as the door opens. The former army medic might hate having his back to the door but the alpha was protectively curled around his pregnant mate. That was way more important than his own comfort.

“Well, don't you two look cozy,” the nurse, a lovely middle aged omega, says as she comes in.

“He woke up for a bit, but fell back asleep,” Eddie tells her as she goes to check the machines. The alpha goes to move to get up so she can check Buck’s vitals but she waves him off.

“You're fine,” she smiles. “The closer you stay the quicker the bond can help him feel better.” She gently checks Buck's pulse and nods.

“I’ll let the doctor know he was awake for a bit,” she says before leaving. Once she is gone he looks over at the clock. It early, but not too early that his pack would be mad at him texting them. As much as he hates the idea of moving from his comfortable spot, he needs his phone which is charging on the table next to the bed. Eddie gets up, stretching as he does. Buck whines in his sleep at the loss and rolls over as if to chase the alpha's fading warmth. It makes the alpha’s heart flutter. He quickly grabs his phone and returns to the bed. Buck now curled into his side with his face tucked in the alpha's neck. Eddie's inner alpha was happier than it had been since the pair bonded at the feel of the omega's bump against his side. And the feeling was heady. The alpha just wants to sit there and bask in the feeling of home that came from watching his vulnerable and trusting mate sleeping in his arms. But he knows he has a number of unanswered messages to deal with. So he silently, and slowly only having one hand to type with, lets Maddie, Carla, and the team know that Buck was doing better. He had woken up for a bit, but was resting now.

They had a lot they needed to sort out, but they would do it together. Lawsuit be damned. His mate and their family was now Eddie's primary focus. And he wasn't willingly going anywhere any time soon. Not unless Buck wanted him to. Even then the alpha wouldn't like it. He loved Buck too much to walk away now. He loved the family they had made. He was sure the others would understand.

When he was done with the messages he settled back down beside his mate and closed his eyes. He would dream of the life they were only just starting as a family, as a pack.

[ladylilithprime]

Day 22: Ladies

(Takes place in the Faerie Court of Avalon, NJ series. Donna Hanscum is a selkie sheriff. Amelia Everett Richardson is a veterinarian specializing in magical animals and animal forms. Matthew Pike is their foster son and best friends with Jack Kline Winchester, who is the adopted son of the faerie whose magic helped Amelia transition in exchange for her first born child-- Amelia's suggestion. The child's sire is either John Castiel Novak or James Constantine Novak, who are twins and Sam's husbands, and donated their sperm to the cause by way of artificial insemination.)

I NEVER THOUGHT that I would say I miss morning PT," Amelia Richardson groaned as she carefully eased herself down into the embrace of the large, overstuffed armchair that had pretty much been declared as her chair from the moment she had been invited to move in. They had just returned from another appointment with Meg, an almost 900-year-old dragon woman who had taken charge of Amelia's health care for the time despite technically only being a registered nurse at the hospital. Immortal credentials were hard to transfer over despite the Magical Revelation, but everyone Amelia had asked said Meg was more than capable, which was good enough for her. With a swing by Lighthouse CommodiTeas for a couple drinks and to drop Donna's foster son, Matt, off for a sleepover with his best friend, that meant that Donna and Amelia were going to have the apartment to themselves... and here Amelia was, sore and exhausted and wishing she was still doing the PT from her brief stint in the Marines again!

"Do you really?" Donna asked, eyebrows raised skeptically. Amelia thought about it, then made a face.

"No," she admitted and sighed. "I miss having the stamina to go up two flights of stairs without being winded. Not really looking forward to the long haul effort it's gonna take me to get back in shape after the munchkin pops out, either."

She placed a hand over her extended abdomen and immediately felt the roll and flex as the baby inside her womb shifted position and pressed back. There was still at least half a month to go on the incubation period, and while Amelia had no desire to rush things along and risk the baby's health from coming out earlier than intended, she also knew that she was quite ready to have the whole thing over and done with.

"It'll take longer than you'll like, but it won't take as long as you think," Donna promised with a pat to Amelia's shoulder as she passed. "Hungry?"

"Yes," Amelia admitted, a little sullenly. It felt ridiculous to be hungry when they'd just had lunch three hours ago. "Do we have any salt and vinegar chips left?"

"I got a few more cans yesterday," Donna called back as she disappeared into the kitchen. She was back a moment later with a can of the requested chips and a bottle of the Green Machine fruit smoothie, both of which she handed to Amelia. "Don't give me that look, Meg said to keep your iron levels up for the baby on account of the faerie magic at work."

"I know, I know," Amelia sighed. She obediently opened the smoothie bottle and gulped down a third of it before going for the chips. "So, we have the place to ourselves with the only kid still here being the one inside me... I know I can be a little oblivious, but this feels like a set-up for either a romantic evening or a serious conversation."

"Kinda," Donna admitted, ducking her head a little sheepishly. She dragged the ottoman over and sat down on it in front of Amelia, then lifted the other woman's feet into her lap, gently tugging off her shoes and rubbing soothing fingers over the marks left behind by them on Amelia's swelled feet and ankles. "This thing between us... it's working pretty well, right?"

"Yeah?" Amelia bit her lower lip, wrestling with the sudden spike of anxiety. "I mean, I kinda thought so. I know this... me living here... only really started because I had that dizzy spell right at the end of the first trimester and Meg put her foot down about me living alone while gestating..."

"Charlie would've offered to take you in as a roommate if I hadn't volunteered first," Donna admitted, ducking her head a little. "I almost had to arm wrestle her for it. And it wouldn't have made a difference in our dating, except for the driving back and forth. I kinda worried that you'd think I was jumping the gun, going from dinner out to moving in after just two months, but...."

"But I was already head over heels for you and jumped at the chance to move in with my gorgeous girlfriend, who actually wanted me to move in," Amelia finished with a crooked little smile that probably didn't do anything to hide the way her heartrate had picked up. She hesitated, then added softly, "Sometimes I wonder how things might've gone between us if we'd met earlier... before I was a real woman...."

"You were always a real woman, Lia-love," Donna broke in gently but firmly. "You might not've realized it at the time, but--"

"I was an angry shell of a person trying too hard to be a man because that's what was expected of me even by me," Amelia interrupted, shaking her head. "And as much as it pains me to say... you really wouldn't have liked me back then. I was a complete asshole, too lost in my own pain to care how much pain I put the people around me through. Being a woman... being allowed to be a woman... has made me a better person overall, and being with you just makes me keep wanting to work at being better. Because you deserve the best, and while I don't exactly think that's me, I'm just so damn grateful you're willing to settle for me anyway that I'll keep trying to be the woman you deserve in your life."

Donna's eyes were suspiciously bright as she reached out and fumbled to take Amelia's left hand in hers. She brought it up to her lips for a kiss, then turned it enough to kiss the base of Amelia's bare ring finger. And then, to Amelia's astonishment, Donna brought their twined hands together to touch the little gold locket she wore in the hollow of her throat.

"I showed you what's inside the front cover of this locket, right?" she asked, her voice thick with emotion. Nonplussed but feeling the unexpected weight to the question nonetheless, Amelia nodded, heart in her throat. "There's a compartment in the back... behind the engraved iris blossom. It's enchanted to have an expanded interior... because it's where I keep my pelt."

Amelia felt her heart practically slam to a stop in her chest before picking up triple its normal speed in shock. "Didi--"

"I don't expect you to do anything with this information," Donna went on, looking up into Amelia's eyes earnestly. "I keep it here because I never know when I might need to 'fursuit up' for an emergency, and I know you well enough to know you respect that and wouldn't try to hide it or anything... you'd probably bite the head off of anyone who did try and take it, knowing what's in it."

"Damn right, I would!" Amelia choked out, her vision starting to go a bit blurry around the edges. She'd take on anything and anyone that put her Donna in danger! "Why--"

"This thing we have is working real well," Donna said with a slight shrug, squeezing Amelia's hand gently. "I just wanted you to know where it is. So you'll know if something happens and it needs looking after."

The dam broke and Amelia burst into tears, too overwhelmed to do anything but cry and clutch at Donna's hand. She felt her girlfriend - was she her wife now? Fianceé? - lean forwards and draw her into a tender embrace. She collapsed against the other woman's chest and sobbed, choking on a wet laugh when the baby protested the suddenly squished position with a sharp kick.

Thank you, she wept, unable to voice the words properly. I love you. I promise I won't let you down.

And the kiss Donna pressed into Amelia's hair felt like a truer benediction than that of any god.

[burned-lariat]

Never in a million years would I even suspect that it would be TJ as the annoying, unreasonable, paranoid person in this surrogacy story. He is being beyond ridiculous right now. A swift kick in his ass is greatly appreciated from anyone willing to do it.

[leaveherwildliketheflowers]

I think I might need a little extra support right now but I'm not really sure where to get it.

[johnnyzest]

went thru my screenshots to see what was happening and apparently it was just iris being miserable 24/7

[lovecolibri]

.

[babysoftboyking]

debating on whether or not to write another grieving mpreg!sam fic where he finds out he’s pregnant the day after deans death

[briarpatch-kids]

By the way, babby timeline is looking like this right now: if things keep going good, then at my follow up appointment in October I'm going to start getting referrals to like... genetic testing and counseling to see what my options are. Depending on what's going on with MY genes, we're going to have to have an expensive science baby, or get my husband's genes tested to see if he carries one of the copies of the same genetic issue without being sick, and if he doesn't carry the same issue and i don't have a heritable genetic condition (we still don't know exactly why I'm missing half my mitochondria) then we're going to have a baby the old fashioned way with a lot more monitoring for my health.

I live in a state where it's very dangerous to be pregnant even if you're not high risk, but I have the resources to get myself to safe prenatal care if I feel afraid for my life. I want a baby, but I also want to be around for them to grow up. I've done some research and from what I can tell, the main thing I'm gonna have to worry about is my physicsl constitution getting stomped into the ground during the pregnancy and if I can breastfeed vs formula feed after. (I want to try but parenting is going to be a balancing act of "is this helping them more than it's taking away from them" so we may need to formula feed.)

[coochiequeens]

“So women with access to emergency care are the ones that live,” she said. “Women that don’t, die.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/21/gaza-childbirth/

JERUSALEM — Walaa didn’t expect the birth of her fourth child to spark abject fear. But by the time her contractions started, the whole family was frantic.

There were no ambulances to be seen in the streets of Gaza’s Rafah City, she said, now so crammed with displaced families that there was barely any food left available for the 27-year-old.

When her uncle Wissam, a doctor, reached the tent where she had lived for weeks in the cold, he said, he could see they had run out of time. “I’m having the baby now,” she kept telling him. It was dark, and she was scared.

His cellphone flashlight was all they had to see by.

The humanitarian catastrophe caused by Israel’s three-month military campaign against Hamas in Gaza counts some 52,000 pregnant women among its greatest victims. As airstrikes push 1.9 million people into an ever-smaller corner of the besieged enclave, disease is spreading, famine is looming and levels of anemia are so high that the risk of postpartum hemorrhage has soared and breastfeeding is often impossible. Forty percent of pregnancies are high-risk, CARE international estimates.

Prenatal care is almost nonexistent — what remains of Gaza’s hospital network is on its knees, at 250 percent capacity and consumed with treating mass casualties from Israeli bombing. Far more women are giving birth outside of medical facilities — in displacement camps, even in the street — than inside them.

Damage to facilities and communications blackouts — the strip lost cellphone service for a week this month — have left Gaza’s health ministry unable to compilereliable data for infant or maternal mortality during the conflict. But doctors and aid groups say miscarriage and stillbirths have spiked.

“What we know about pregnancy-related complications is that it’s hard to prevent them in any setting, but the way that we save a woman and newborn’s life is we treat the complication quickly,” said Rondi Anderson, a midwifery specialist for the Project HOPE aid group.

“So women with access to emergency care are the ones that live,” she said. “Women that don’t, die.”

The only place that Wissam could find to deliver his terrified niece’s baby was a spot of cold earth between the tents. Aid workers hung bedsheets to give the woman a modicum of privacy. No one had been able to contact Walaa’s husband, and her mother was so scared that at times she had to look away. They cut the boy’s umbilical cord with an unsterilized scalpel and they filled tin cans with hot water to keep him warm. He weighed 7 pounds and Walaa named him Ramzy.

The family spoke on the condition that only their first names be used because they feared for their safety in the event that Israeli troops entered the town.

Baby Ramzy is 5 days old. (Loay Ayyoub for The Washington Post)

They fled their home in northern Gaza so abruptly that no one thought to grab clothes for the baby. This week, Ramzy was swaddled in a onesie outgrown by another child in the camp. He wailed as Walaa, still in pain from tearing during the birth, gingerly pulled herself upright.

The 16-year blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas won control of Gaza had already made pregnancy and childbirth more difficult for expecting mothers. Before the current conflict, hospitals often lacked adequate equipment and training for neonatal staff, according to Medical Aid for Palestinians, and more than half of pregnant women were anemic.

Hamas fighters streamed out of the enclave on Oct. 7 to kill around 1,200 people in Israel and take another 240 hostage. Israel responded with a bombing campaign and ground war to eradicate Hamas, killing almost 25,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, to date.

The South African legal team that accused Israel before the International Court of Justice this month of committing genocide during the conflict argued that the obstruction of lifesaving treatment since Oct. 7 amounts to preventing births.

A lawyer for Israel called allegations that it is obstructing the delivery of food, water, fuel and other supplies critical for Gaza “tendentious and partial,” and said it was working “around-the-clock” to help scale up the volume of aid making it into the enclave.

Hanaa al-Shawa, 23, gave birth to her first child, Ayla, during the coronavirus pandemic, and the little girl, she said, brought her family a “glimmer of hope.” Shawa and her husband Mustafa, 25, were ecstatic when they learned in July that another child was on the way. The war began in October, and the future they dreamed of fell apart. “I had felt overwhelming joy,” Shawa recalled. “I did not realize that this joy would turn into great suffering.”

Nearly 20,000 babies were born in Gaza during the first 105 days of the war, UNICEF reported Friday. Delays in the delivery of lifesaving supplies, the U.N. children’s agency said, have left some hospitals performing Caesarean sections without anesthetic. Spokeswoman Tess Ingram said she met a nurse at Gaza’s Emirati maternity hospital who had helped with postmortem caesarians on six dead women.

“Seeing newborn babies suffer while some mothers bleed to death should keep us all awake at night,” Ingram told reporters Friday. “In the time it has taken to present this to you, another baby was likely born, but into what?”

“Becoming a mother should be a time of celebration,” she said. “But in Gaza it’s another child delivered into hell.”

For the five pregnant women interviewed by Washington Post reporters, fear that mother or baby might not survive suffused their waking thoughts — and made appearances in nightmares, too.

Shawa and Mustafa left their home in Gaza City’s Yarmouk Street in the second week of October. The Israel Defense Forces had ordered 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to move south for what it described as their own safety.

“I was afraid that I would miscarry because of the power of the rockets,” she said.

Displaced Palestinian families from the northern and central Gaza Strip evacuate toward southern Gaza on Oct. 13. (Loay Ayyoub for The Washington Post)

Many pregnant women made the 20-mile journey from north to south on foot, their legs swollen and joints heavy as they carried their luggage, three women who made the journey told The Post.

When Ayla was born, her family had a room full of toys ready for her. The room in which Shawa’s second child, a girl, will spend her first weeks, in a friend’s home in the Tel al-Sultan area, is tainted with asbestos, she said.

“We carried Ayla here in just the clothes she was wearing, and we don’t even have anything warm for her,” Shawa said. “If I’m unable to provide for her, what will I do for my next child?”

Rising food scarcity and malnutrition can cause potentially life-threatening complications during childbirth and lead to low birth weight, wasting, failure to thrive and developmental delays.

Shawa said she had only eaten tinned food, with no access to fruit or vegetables, since she left her home three months ago. Doctors have said her iron levels are low and her blood pressure is high. Mustafa searches daily but has found no suitable medication to control it.

Saja Al-Shaer, 19, started to feel like she was too young to become a mother. Her weight had dropped below 110 pounds, she was anemic, and her husband had not managed to get her medication, either. “He spent three days knocking on the doors of pharmacies,” she said. “I do not know if I will see this child or not.”

In late December, doctors at the al-Aqsa Hospital, 11 miles to the north, received a pregnant woman whose high blood pressure caused eclampsia and bleeding to her brain, according to Deborah Harrington, a British obstetrician who volunteered at the hospital with a Medical Aid for Palestinians team.

The baby was delivered by a C-section, Harrington said. The mother was still on life support when the physician left two weeks later.

“These women are presenting it in much more extreme condition,” Harrington said. “They’re just not getting hypertensive treatment. They’re not being screened for diabetes. If they’re diabetic, they’re not getting treatment for their diabetes.

“They know that actually accessing care, as it often is for women in conflict, is really difficult and fraught with danger. At night, there is often no light, so moving around is really difficult. You can’t call an ambulance because there’s no signal. The women I saw were really frightened.”

Walaa with her uncle Wissam, who helped deliver her newborn son. (Loay Ayyoub for The Washington Post)

From the corner of the damp room where Walaa was tending to Ramzy on Friday, she worried about where they would find clean water or baby formula. Her family had looked everywhere for diapers, but come up empty. In Tel al-Sultan, Shawa was fixating on rumors that Israel’s army would direct them to evacuate again. The walking, the carrying, the sense that nothing around her was hygienic — it all frightened her.

But she had made one decision that no shortage or military orders could change. She would name her daughter after her sister-in-law, killed in an Israeli airstrike weeks earlier while trying to find shelter for her own children.

The girl, she said, would be called Heba. In Arabic, it means blessing from God.

Mahfouz reported from Cairo and Harb reported from London. Loay Ayyoub in Rafah contributed to this report.

[border-collie]

one thing that sneaks up on you once things start going right is suddenly your brain starts whispering things about kids and you gotta be sane about it

[bunnyboy-juice]

my sister sent me the 20wk ultrasound pictures and i am so excited to meet my little nugget i have no idea how im gonna survive the next 20 weeks without exploding

[colorisbyshe]

literally a holy being could come down from the fucking sky, and be like 'you have been chosen to carry the next coming of [important holy figure, it doesn't have to be jesus]" and i'd literally just open my phone in front of them to contact planned parenthood and then after that figure out how to get a hysterectomy like

you can keep trying and we can find out how fucked up my reproductive system can get i'll double fist birth control pills get shots get a dozen iuds shoved up there like... yeah it'd hurt and i'd be fucked up but i'm not doing that shit for real

do not care if the fate of the world depends on it. whoever planned that badly is at fault, not me.