Expectant mothers may have one less worry as Magen David Adom (MDA) and the Israel Midwives Organization (IMO) have started a new project to assist women in labor in northern communities under Hezbollah fire, the organizations announced.
Why is the project needed?
In 2023, 16,283 pregnant women were evacuated to hospitals but a significant number of the women, 1,062, gave birth in their homes or on their way to the hospital. While these women received emergency treatment from MDA respondents, Out-Of-Hospital (OOH) births can be both stressful and carry risks.
Recognizing the increased risk expectant mothers faced, especially knowing that rocket attacks could impair their ability to travel to a hospital, IMO and MDA embarked on this new project.
IMO and MDA are mapping all northern communities where there are pregnant women, from the Golan Heights all the way to Nahariya, in order to connect midwifery participants and pregnant women. This will allow midwives to be made aware in advance of the location of expectant mothers and should reduce the time it takes for them to receive care.
Manager of MDA’s First Response Division and Project Manager Yossi Halabi added, “There is huge importance to in reducing the response time for a wide range of medical emergency situations in the community. We are happy for the cooperation with The Israel Midwives Organization in a special project giving medical response to pregnant women in situations in which for some reason, a security emergency, natural disaster or extreme weather, there is difficulty in the ambulance’s access to them or it isn’t possible to evacuate them to the hospital.”
Preparing the midwives
IMO and MDA hosted two intensive training sessions which were attended by 37 midwives from the Golan Heights region and the Asher regional communities.
Officials stress the importance of the project
Deputy Director General for Medicine, Dr. Raphael Strugo stressed that “A complication in childbirth can end tragically for the woman giving birth and for the newborn, especially when it is an out-of-hospital birth. As in every emergency medical situation – when there is an experienced caregiver on the scene, and in this case an experienced midwife, the event is significantly better run, and that is the basis for this project. The cooperation with The Israel Midwives Organization will enable pregnant women to prepare ahead of time and be in touch with experienced midwives who will arrive together with Magen David Adom teams and even before them in distant locations, so that the best possible response is provided in the case of unplanned births.”
