ANNOUNCEMENTS•
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Kysia Hekster
Correspondent of the European Union
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Kysia Hekster
Correspondent of the European Union
The war in Ukraine has now been going on for more than nine months. Women who became pregnant just before or at the start of the war have now given birth to their first war babies. Their pregnancy was often accompanied by a lot of stress. Russia regularly carries out attacks on hospitals. There was one just two weeks ago dead newborn in southern Ukraine.
In a Lviv hospital, newborn Inna Serbul talks about the fears she suffered during her pregnancy:
Ukrainian war children born: ‘My husband had to fight, I was stressed’
“I kept wondering if I should have given birth in a bomb shelter. It was so scary, my pregnancy test results weren’t good.” She eventually fled Odessa to relatively safe Lviv and had a C-section. She is happy with little Sofia but she also fears for the future. Her husband Dmytro is a soldier. He was allowed to watch the delivery. Next week you have to go back to the front. “I’m afraid goodbye could be goodbye,” she says visibly excited.
Yet women say the war hasn’t stopped them from having children. “We want to show that we are not afraid, it is important to bring more Ukrainian life into the world right now,” says Christina, seven months pregnant with her fourth child. “My husband and I have decided that we want to further expand our family during this war. This is a very conscious choice.”
I have found a way to deal with stress
According to Valentyn Usyk, who supervises Inna and Christina’s pregnancies, Ukrainian women are strong and used to handling stress. “I want to pay tribute to our Ukrainian women who are resistant to stress. The first months of the war were extremely stressful, but later women found a way to cope with stress,” he says.
According to him, it is still too early to say whether more or fewer babies are being born than a year ago. Usyk also says he doesn’t have good figures for his Lviv hospital on the increase in the number of premature births, which is often related to too much stress in pregnancy. Earlier, the Unitaid health organization reported that there had been a few hospitals since the start of the war three times as many premature births they are normal.
