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Desperation 'causing baby boom'
07/12/2005 16:55 - (SA)
Jantho - Giggling women swarm outside a little grey tent in a sprawling refugee camp in Indonesia. The attraction is a tiny miracle - two-month-old Asmaul Tzuchina.
The baby, known as Tzuchi, represents new life and hope for the women who lost children to the Asian tsunami nearly a year ago.
Many grieving mothers are desperate to rebuild family and home, even if the latter is just a plastic tent or a cramped barrack.
Dr Brian Sriprahastuti, of Unicef's safe motherhood programme in Aceh, said the desperation is causing a baby boom. "We have to do that because if not, we will lose a generation in Aceh".
More than a third of the 216 000 dead or missing in the 12 Asian countries affected by the tsunami are believed to be children - too weak to run, swim or hang on.
Pregnancies are increasing
Sriprahastuti has noticed a surge in pregnancies since August.
The pregnancies follow a flurry of marriages, including mass weddings in which hundreds of couples in refugee camps take vows to start over.
In a patient log book at the Jantho refugee camp, a midwife scans dozens of handwritten names, ages and tent locations. Forty women are listed as pregnant.
Cut Asmika is one of them. She pours sweat as she sits in a sarong, tenderly stroking her bulging belly.
She is due any day and believes the treasure inside her promises escape from the loneliness left by the tsunami.
Asmika's mother, father and three siblings were washed away in Aceh.
Scared and alone, she married a man she hardly knew in a mass wedding in February. They immediately began starting a family.
Softly, Asmika explains her reasons: "I'm the only person to survive, so I'm all alone. If I have a baby, I will have a friend."
Desperation for children, however, is pushing some women to extremes.
Post-menopausal women are asking midwives if they can still conceive.
Some women in their 40s are risking complications by trying to utilise the tiny reproductive window they have left.
Sriprahastuti says most expectant mothers and newborn babies are healthy overall, but pregnancy is risky for any woman over 35.
She advises all the women on the programme to visit trained midwives for prenatal checkups and to deliver in a hospital, rather than at home.
However, even those supposed to warn older women about these dangers are disregarding their own advice.
Asma Sulaiman lost five of her six children in the tsunami. She has practiced as a midwife for over 20 years and, at 44, she too is trying to start over.
Asma explains: "If only God gives us one, it will make us happier. Losing many children - it's not a little thing. It's a big thing."
She miscarried in August but continues to try.
- AP
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