Associated Press
[Source: AP News]
Aisha Muhammed was in the third trimester of her pregnancy when she had the convulsions and high blood pressure of eclampsia, a leading cause of maternal death. Her village’s only health clinic had no doctor, and the only medical help was 40 kilometers (25 miles) away in one of the world’s most dangerous places.
More women die giving birth in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world, according to the World Health Organization. But Muhammed managed to reach the city of Maiduguri and have a cesarean section the next day, delivering twins in April.
“Even though children are a source of joy, if I will have to go through the same ordeal again, I am afraid of getting pregnant,” she said, fighting back tears.
The odds are stacked against pregnant women in Nigeria’s northeast like never before.
The deadly Boko Haram militant group is making a resurgence. And hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid from the United States, once Nigeria’s biggest donor, have disappeared under the Trump administration this year.
Roads are closed by fighting. Many doctors and other health workers, as well as aid organizations, have fled.
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