Pregnant women in war-torn Myanmar face perilous childbirth

Malnourished and fleeing raids, many miscarry or give birth with little medical attention

Ma Hla May*, a farmer in northern Myanmar's war-torn Sagaing region, gave birth to her fourth child in January.

Unlike her first three children, who were delivered at a public hospital in Pale township, her youngest child was born at home in Kyaung Than village with the help of a midwife.

Yet she counts herself lucky for managing a safe delivery amid a raging conflict in the region.

Pregnant women face perilous childbirth circumstances in northern Myanmar, where some of the fiercest fighting is taking place between the military junta and ethnic armed organisations allied with resistance groups that have emerged to oppose the 2021 military coup.

The fighting means that villagers have to constantly stay alert to military raids and bombardment.

Unable to travel 8km to the hospital for a medical check-up, Ms Ma Hla May could not obtain prenatal supplements and had to subsist on plain rice for most of her pregnancy. But it was the lack of rest that affected her most.

"I couldn't get enough sleep. People are so tired because they can't sleep," said the 38-year-old woman, who used a pseudonym for security reasons.

Fleeing military bombardment and often malnourished, many miscarry or resort to dangerous childbirth with little medical attention in the forests, said volunteer medics interviewed by The Straits Times.

Before the coup, Myanmar ranked 50th in the world in maternal mortality, with an estimated 179 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2020, which put it ahead of Cambodia and Timor-Leste in the region. Myanmar's neonatal mortality rate, which measures the number of infant deaths in the first 28 days of their lives, was estimated to be 22 per 1,000 live births in 2020.