A newborn baby clings to life in Gaza

In the more than 9 months that the conflict has raged on in Gaza, women have continued to conceive, miscarry, and birth their babies. For them, it has been 9 months of hell.

Some of these babies have died just days later. Sometimes their mothers die too. But some manage to survive against the odds. Here, Diana* tells the story of the birth of her son, Yaman*, and her fight for his survival.

My mum started praying out of fear for me and my baby, and fear that I would give birth at home. I started to have a contraction every five minutes, and I felt like I was dying over and over again because of the intensity of the airstrikes.

The quadcopters were shooting at the rooftops of people's homes and the displaced people in the street.

I was in extreme fear. I took my child to the living room and started to get ready to go out to a safer place. We were just waiting for the sunrise the next day.

The next morning, due to the extreme pain I was in, we went to the American field hospital, which is basically just a few tents, but I faced a lot of problems on my way there. It was a very long distance that we walked, and the streets were really crowded. When we got to the hospital, they transferred me to the obstetrics section, and I was starting to dilate. The contractions went on for a whole day, and I stayed in the hospital until I finally delivered my son at around 2 a.m. His name is Yaman*.

I gave birth along with three other women in the same space. We did not get any medical care or attention. Me or my baby.

Yaman was not fully or properly medically examined. We were in the same section of the hospital for miscarriages and caesarean births, and I stayed in this section for about 6 hours before I was discharged. I was worried and not fully sure of my baby's health or safety, since he was not even put in a nursery.

But after I went home, I just felt happy and grateful that we passed this difficult phase and that I gave birth to a healthy baby.

After two hours at home, we noticed Yaman had turned blue all over his body. This was the first time this happened to him. When we asked about this condition, people told us it was normal. It did not feel normal.

Then, after the third day, his skin turned into a pale yellow, and on the fourth day the yellowish colour became more apparent, but we thought there was still no need to call a paediatrician.

Then, suddenly, the blueish color came back.

I immediately called my husband and mother-in-law, and we took Yaman to the same hospital where he was born. They told us he was about 20 percent yellow, dehydrated and in need of a blood transfusion.

We were then referred to Al-Aqsa Hospital to do another check-up and get all the necessary screening tests done. We were really afraid to go to the hospital because it was threatened with airstrikes several times, and many surrounding homes were bombed. We were scared for our baby's life. But we were forced to go there for his own safety and protection. We risked our own lives.

Once there, we were transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), because Yaman's condition had quickly deteriorated. The levels of bilirubin had shot up to 60 percent just while on the way to the NICU. The tests confirmed that my baby was severely dehydrated. The blue-ish color was as a result of all the spasms he was having.

The doctors told us that the acute bilirubin in the blood caused some brain damage and that our baby should have been transferred to the newborn nursery to be monitored and get the proper care he needed right away. But he wasn't.

I felt like I lost my mind when I heard this. He could have just been put under halo therapy and followed-up by doctors, but he got no proper diagnosis or follow-up by both doctors and nurses.

This, too, is a consequence of the war.

On the second day, a blood sample that we took from Yaman revealed that his haemoglobin levels were very low.

A new round of tests revealed that he had severe infections.

On the third day, my baby boy's heart stopped beating minutes while he was at the nursery. They wanted to do CPR, but he miraculously started breathing again.

Yaman has been receiving IV therapy since he was born, and we've slowly introduced him to milk, which we fed him using a syringe and then through a bottle. But Yaman was not able to suck the milk properly and barely took in any.

On the seventh day, I was called in to come breastfeed him, but I faced a lot of difficulty because he wasn't responding.

The hospital was extremely overcrowded. There was no peace. There were displaced families and wounded people in the hallways. There was a complete breakdown in the hospital's hygiene, and there were people with injuries scattered all over the hospital's floors.

Image: The hunt for diapers and sanitary products is a daily ordeal for women in Gaza

I am scared of not being able to find any diapers, formula milk, or any basic needs because of the repeated closure of the Rafah crossing, and their lack of availability in the market.

I need the smallest size of diaper, size 1. I sent my husband looking for it and he looked for two whole days until he found some.

There was a time when we were displaced in Rafah when we were told that diapers and formula milk were completely out of stock and not available in the market. But then some supplies entered, but, still, the prices were extremely high.

On July 31,Yaman's health deteriorated again, and we went back with him to the hospital. Back to square one. But now since he is one month and 8 days old, he cannot go back to the nursery.

We took him to the paediatrics section, and we were so scared as we walked in.

The unsanitary conditions were horrible. There was no care offered to anyone. People injured by bomb shrapnels or all mangled after having emerged from under the rubble were filling the hallways, strewn across the floors. Yaman suddenly got diarrhoea, and his temperature shot up. I changed his diapers 14 times in half a day.

We went to get him checked, but the nurses really struggled to draw his blood because he is so fragile and underweight. There was literally no space to get him examined. He was checked out in the hallway in between the sick children. You cannot imagine how worried we were, especially with this new outbreak of contagious skin disease. I was really, really scared he would get it.

We did blood tests and found that his haemoglobin levels were very low. The first doctor told us not to worry, and then the second doctor told us, yes, we should worry. It dropped further. We were told he needed a blood transfusion.

CARE received a truckload containing around 1,139 baby kits on July 7 at the UN Logistics Cluster warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, for the first time since May. The shipment entered the Gaza Strip via the Karam Abu Salem crossing with Egypt, following a three-week delay where the truck was held at the border along with of other trucks waiting to deliver desperately needed aid into Gaza. Several additional trucks equipped with baby and hygiene kits remain in Cairo, held back from dispatch to Gaza due to the substantial backlogs. Photo: CARE

Can you imagine my son is barely one month and 8 days old, abd he has to go to the regular children's section, along with children suffering from meningitis and all kinds of skin diseases that are spread around amongst children in the Deir Al-Balah area, and whom people do not know how to treat? Can you imagine what this feels like as a parent? Not to mention that Yaman could have been treated when he was born, but they were not really paying attention to him, given how many cases they were dealing with and the lack of experience.

Can you imagine that he had to get a blood transfusion in the middle of the hallway surrounded by children sick with contagious diseases? We could not even find a chair to sit on. They told us it's all down to your effort to find a doctor and get their attention.

There were no cannulas, no nurses, no one who was able to insert the cannula.

Today, we were waiting from 7 a.m. in the morning until 10:30 for someone to come help insert the cannula and draw a blood sample. There was only one nurse on duty waiting for the doctor to do this simple procedure.

But my son is alive today.

*Names changed