PHOTOS AND TEXT BY ABBIE TRAYLER-SMITH
Last February, I travelled to Yemen to begin work on a project about women and motherhood. Yemen, known mainly for its striking landscape and history, has a very high maternal mortality rate. At one of the hospitals I visited I had the privilege of being given access to the maternity unit and taking photographs at four separate births. While the hospital was not unsanitary, it was clear that it was extremely basic. And this was for the women lucky enough to be able to afford the transportation costs of getting there. Most Yemeni women give birth at home with no medical help. Even in the hospital you have to take your own drugs with you. There was one cupboard with about eight boxes of pills in, which had been donated by previous patients. It’s not somewhere I would choose to have a baby but it makes you realise how lucky we are in this country. Despite all the hardship there and the fact that people live on less than £1 a day, there was an amazing sense of hope that really left an impression on me.
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| Yemini women are very fertile. They can expect on average 7.9 children compared to an average of 2.7 in the rest of the world. |
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| In Yemen, only 23 per cent of women have access to contraception. |
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| Only 22 per cent of all births in Yemen are attended by professionals. Many take place in homes, huts, rural areas, or any place with a roof over its head when the waters break. A cowshed, for example. In the UK, 99.9 per cent of births are attended by a professional. |
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TO BE CONTINUED:
BORN IN YEMEN | 1 | 2 |
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