The number of premature or complicated births has roughly doubled this year compared to previous times in Ukraine, according to hospital officials.
The increase in premature births is said to be due to stress and rapidly deteriorating living standards, which are taking a toll on pregnant women.
As Russian forces continue their offensive along Ukraine’s eastern flank, a Ukrainian doctor has described how she now lives in the only remaining maternity hospital in the war-torn Donetsk region to care for premature babies.
Before the Russian invasion of the country, three hospitals in the government-controlled areas of Donetsk region had facilities to care for premature babies.
However, one was hit by a Russian airstrike and the other was forced to close as a result of the fighting – leaving only the maternity hospital in the coal-mining town of Pokrovsk in operation.
Tetiana Myroshnychenko, the only neonatologist left in the area, described how she now lives in the hospital and her three-year-old son splits the week between staying at the facility and with his father at home.
The doctor explained that babies in the hospital’s above-ground incubation ward could not be disconnected from their life-saving machines and that leaving the hospital, even if an air raid siren sounded, would be impossible.
Among Myroshnychenko’s patients is two-month-old Veronica, who was born prematurely. “If I take Veronica to the shelter, it will take five minutes. But for him, those five minutes can be critical,” said Myroshnychenko.