One of the issues that hasn’t gotten a lot of coverage concerning post Maria Puerto Rico is the plight of pregnant women, and the difficulties they face in accessing and receiving care and delivery services — in hospital or via midwife at home.
This report from Vice News details the difficulties and a community response:
Delivering babies and saving lives on Puerto Rico after Maria
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Claritza Martinez went into labor with her first child on Oct. 20, one month to the day after Hurricane Maria tore through her Villa Palmeras neighborhood. The roads were impassable and the hospitals were closed. So she did what hundreds of women have done since the storm: She gave birth at home, in the dark.
More than half of Puerto Rico remains without power, and a fifth of residents don’t have access to clean drinking water, much less prenatal or labor and delivery supplies. Women are unable to find their doctors and fears of Zika carried by mosquitos amid the flooding are high. In this environment, many expectant mothers are forced to make panicked decisions about where to have their babies — should they drive to a hospital that might not take them or try a potentially dangerous home birth?
“The system is just overwhelmed. The doctor-to-patient ratio is too high,” said Ted Held, a physician and volunteer OB-GYN with Circle of Health International, an NGO that trains and sends volunteer medical professionals to crisis zones to assist mothers and pregnant women.
Please help by sharing these stories, contacting your Congressperson and Senator and giving if you can.
Circle of Health is one of the groups providing maternal support.
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