Stillborn under occupation

by Guest Sat Apr 09, 2016 11:12 pm

Documenting Palestinian checkpoint births

07.04.16 Samar Hazboun Stillborn under occupation Ico_right

Bethlehem
Hebron
Jerusalem

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An outfit belonging to a stillborn baby; the only trace the mother has of her tragic birth at a checkpoint.

Samar Hazboun is a Palestinian photographer who has published several projects documenting life under occupation, including a photo essay of Palestinian teenagers jailed by Israel and one of the last generation of Palestinians born before the wall in the West Bank is completed. Her latest project, “Beyond checkpoints,” documents the often forgotten stories of Palestinian women who have given birth at Israeli checkpoints, or been delayed for hours before being able to cross and go to a hospital.

Between 2000 and 2005, more than 67 women gave birth at checkpoints. Some of these women lost their babies, others had children with physical defects due to a lack of medical attention. All of the parents share horrifying tales of their ordeals, and none of them have received any compensation. For this project, Samar took part in the 2015 Arab Documentary Photography Program (ADPP), which provides support and mentorship to photographers from across the Arab world. ADPP supported her project, and she was mentored by Peter Van Agtmael, a Magnum photographer.

Why did you decide to portray women giving birth at checkpoints?

I chose to speak about this topic because it is something that hasn’t been given the attention it deserves. It felt like it is an under-documented part of history, and in terms of photography it has not been done before. It’s very difficult to photograph something that happened so many years ago, where the proof is almost erased. Yet I still felt like the least I can do is collect the stories of these women and gather them in one place, adding to it a visual reference.

“The impact of this project might not be immediate but I hope that one day it will be used as a reference and proof that war crimes have been committed.”

How did you work on this series, what were the challenges?

I began researching and quite immediately found out that I was faced with a huge challenge as there was no list with names where I could find the women I was looking to interview. So I had to get in touch with various organisations who were able to give me a couple of names or names of people who might know someone who had suffered from this. The problem was that the names I got were either “Umm Ahmad” or “the wife of Hamdan Mamdouh.” Most of the phone numbers weren’t up-to-date anymore, so I found myself struggling to get in touch with these people. So I decided to go to villages and knock on doors to try to find these women by word of mouth. It was a lengthy and very exhausting process because most of these villages were very far from [where I live] and I had to travel up to three hours to get to some of them. It was a little bit of an oral history project if you like.

I asked each woman to show me an object that reminded her of [when it happened]: an object that bore witness to that day, or the clothes of the child if they had kept them. This was challenging; in some cases as many as 10 or more years had passed, so the women had to look into their storages to dig the clothes out. Most were surprised that after so many years someone wanted to document this. Most of these women had neither received any compensation nor were able to sue the soldiers.

The project also includes portraits of the children who survived, many of which have suffered of physical complications due to the delay in birth, lack of oxygen and other factors. And photos of the checkpoints where the forced births took place.

What kind of an impact do you think your project may have?

When the ADPP website was launched, I was surprised by a couple of emails I received from people in the US who told me that they had no clue that this was happening. You know it’s hard, because these stories go against how the Israeli army portrays itself, claiming to be one of the most ethical armies in the world and the Middle East’s only democracy. We should not let such stories get lost because they are one of the proofs that this army is committing war crimes without anyone holding them accountable. I see this as a part of Palestinian history and a brutal side to the conflict which has not been given the attention it deserves. I believe that each Palestinian should use whatever tool he/she has to transcribe these stories, which are now mostly forgotten, and turn them into something touchable in order to create this historical archive of the ongoing Palestinian catastrophe and ethnic cleansing.

The impact of this project might not be immediate but I hope that one day it will be used as a reference and proof that war crimes have been committed.

Stillborn under occupation SH_20141214_Amnah04

Amnah was 19 years old when she was forced to give birth to her first child at a military checkpoint. At 6 am, she woke up to birth pains and left the house with her mother for the hospital. Upon arriving at a checkpoint, they were held for five hours by Israeli soldiers. Amnah’s mother tried to explain her daughter’s situation as she was bleeding heavily, but they refused to let her through. By the time they were able to take another route to reach the hospital, the baby had died in her womb.

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Kifah was pregnant with her first child when around 4 am she started feeling birth contractions. It was a cold night with temperatures at around -3 degrees Celsius. In order to reach a hospital, Kifah and her husband had to cross a checkpoint, but were denied permission to pass. As her husband tried to convince the soldiers that his wife needed to reach the hospital urgently, Kifah fell to the ground and started giving birth. As soon as the baby’s head started coming out, the soldiers allowed them to cross to the other side where an ambulance was waiting. Kifah gave birth to her son at the checkpoint, causing him irreparable brain damage.

“The soldier was blond. I will never forget him staring at me with his colleague and laughing as I lay on the floor in labour”, Kifah.

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In 2003, Tarab, who was eight months pregnant and bleeding heavily, was prevented from crossing a checkpoint with her husband at 4 am. Her husband decided to take her to the hospital through another route, but faced another checkpoint where they again were denied the right to cross. A puddle of blood started forming under Tarab’s car seat as her husband negotiated with the soldiers. Finally, they were given permit to cross the checkpoint, but only on foot. Tarab’s husband carried her onto a cart and pulled her as he walked towards the hospital, but the cart lost balance and Tarab fell to the ground. The journey took them eight hours, but shortly after their arrival, they were notified the baby had died inside Tarab’s womb 30 minutes before reaching the hospital.

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A traditional outfit bought by a Palestinian mother ahead of her child’s birth.

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“When I see children going to school I feel intense pain. I imagine that my son could’ve been one of them.”

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“I have no proof of what happened to me that day, except for this piece of cloth from what I was wearing that day. It bore witness to the worst day of my life.”

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A checkpoint in the form of roadblocks on a road between Bethlehem and Hebron.

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“Died in her womb

Soldiers at Huwwara checkpoint forbid a pregnant woman bleeding heavily from reaching the hospital.”

Due to harsh circumstances, Ahmed suffered from a lack of oxygen when born at a checkpoint. At the age of three months, Ahmed still did not react to sound or moving objects. He received medical treatment, but still suffers from eyesight problems and learning disabilities.

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Al-Shuhada Street checkpoint in Hebron. At least three births have been documented at this checkpoint.

Stillborn under occupation Samar-Hazboun

Samar Hazboun

Samar Hazboun is a visual artist and documentary photographer, born in Jerusalem and brought up in the West Bank. Much of her work is focused on women's rights, or things related to the consequences of the occupation of Palestine.

http://www.mashallahnews.com/stillborn-under-occupation/

Utter inhumanity.

by Guest Sat Apr 09, 2016 11:35 pm

I can not imagine anything more terrifying than being treated like that when giving birth. At that stage you can do nothing to help yourself and are total vunerable to the actions of those around you.

by Guest Sun Apr 10, 2016 12:00 am

Not that i see any evidence that being detained or that going into labour then cause their baby to be born still born. A very outlandish claim indeed.
I love how it also fails to mention every year hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from both Gaza and the West bank are treated in Israeli Hospitals. There is no way to verify this information and only one known cases exists where an IDF soldier refused to allow a pregnant women through. i would love to see all these autopsy reports that fundamentally link these deaths claimed to have been caused by check points

There is also a very simple solution to this dilema
They need to do what they should have done in 1947.#]

Excepted the state of Israel.
By excepting a lasting peace.
To stop numerous terrorist attacks.
Again its this kind of tactic played off, where its children again, being used as political tools to dehumanize Israel.

Some info to understand here

“Israel uses checkpoints to deny Palestinians their rights and to humiliate them.”

FACT

It is not unusual for nations to guard their borders and to establish checkpoints to prevent people from illegally entering their countries. The United States has checkpoints at its borders and airports and, as Americans saw on September 11, these are necessary but not foolproof security precautions.
In the case of Israel, the necessity for checkpoints has been created by the Palestinians. By pursuing a violent campaign of terror against Israel’s citizens, they have forced Israel to set up barriers to make it as difficult as possible for terrorists to enter Israel or travel through the territories to carry out acts of violence. The checkpoints are an inconvenience to innocent Palestinians, but they also prevent terror and save lives.
For example, on October 5, 2008, two pipe bombs were found in a parcel carried by a Palestinian man at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus. On June 8, 2008, an 18-year-old Palestinian was arrested at the same checkpoint carrying six pipe bombs, an ammunition cartridge, bullets, and a bag of gunpowder. “It’s routine to find bombs at this checkpoint . . . every day, we find knives and other weapons,” said Cpl. Ron Bezalel of the military police. Just three weeks earlier, another Palestinian was arrested at Hawara carrying five pipe bombs, which he had attached and strapped to his chest to act as an explosives belt. ⁴⁶
“One does not judge a democracy by the way its soldiers immediately react, young men and women under tremendous provocation. One judges a democracy by the way its courts react, in the dispassionate cool of judicial chambers. And the Israeli Supreme Court and other courts have reacted magnificently. For the first time in Mideast history, there is an independent judiciary willing to listen to grievances of Arabs—that judiciary is called the Israeli Supreme Court.”
— Alan Dershowitz ⁴⁷

On November 10, 2008, at the Taysir checkpoint outside of Jenin, Israeli soldiers caught a Palestinian attempting to smuggle through a pipe bomb. ⁴⁸
On January 9, 2011, a Palestinian was killed at the Bekaot checkpoint after charging at the soldiers. He was carrying a pipe bomb and another explosive device. ⁴⁹
On March 9, 2011, five pipe bombs and 3 Molotov cocktails were found in a Palestinian’s bag at Tapuach junction. ⁵⁰
On April 11, 2012, a teenage Palestinian man was apprehended at a checkpoint outside Nablus while trying to pass with seven IED's and three knives.^50a
On October 23, 2012, a 19-year-old Palestinian was caught at the Kalandiya check point with eight pipe bombs he was trying to bring into Jerusalem.^50b
Hyperbolic media reports and anti-Israel propaganda have suggested Israel is harassing Palestinian women at checkpoints. It is unfortunate that women cannot be ignored as potential security threats. Border policemen at a checkpoint north of Jerusalem, for example, arrested a Palestinian woman pushing a baby stroller that concealed a pistol, two ammunition clips and a knife. ⁵¹
Commercial goods, food, medicine, ambulances and medical crews continue to circulate freely, hampered only by continuing attacks. Palestinian workers going to jobs in Israel also may pass through the checkpoints with the proper identification; restrictions are only imposed when necessitated by the security situation.
Barriers are not set up to humiliate Palestinians, but to ensure the safety of Israeli citizens. Frequently, whenIsrael has relaxed its policy and withdrawn checkpoints, Palestinian terrorists have taken advantage of the opportunity to launch new attacks on innocent Israelis. Still, Israel has dismantled more than 120 unmanned checkpoints and reduced the number of manned checkpoints from 41 to 14 in the last two years. ⁵²

MYTH

“Israeli checkpoints prevent Palestinians from receiving medical attention.”

FACT

Israel has instituted checkpoints for one reason—to prevent Palestinian terrorists from infiltrating Israel. If the Palestinian Authority was fulfilling its Road Map obligations to dismantle the terrorist networks and disarm the terrorists, and its security forces were taking adequate measures to prevent Palestinians from planning and launching attacks, the checkpoints would be dismantled.
Israel tries to balance its security concerns with the welfare of the Palestinians, and is especially sensitive to the medical needs of Palestinians. According to IDF guidelines, any Palestinian in need of urgent medical care is allowed passage through checkpoints. The severity of the medical condition is determined by the checkpoint commander, who is to make decisions in favor of the Palestinian if there is any doubt. Palestinians are also allowed to enter Israel for routine medical care unless there is a security problem. Even then, Palestinians can appeal decisions and are also offered other options, such as transfer to neighboring states.
Ambulances are still stopped and searched at Israeli checkpoints because they have frequently been used as a means to transport terrorist bombs, and many of the murderers who have triggered suicide bombings in Israel gained access by driving or riding in Red Crescent ambulances. For example:

In October 2001, Nidal Nazal, a Hamas operative in Kalkilya, was arrested by the IDF. He was an ambulance driver for the Palestinian Red Crescent who served as a messenger between the Hamas headquarters in several West Bank towns. ⁵³
In January 2002, Wafa Idris blew herself up on the crowded Jaffa Street in Jerusalem, becoming one of the first female suicide bombers. She was an ambulance driver for the Palestinian Red Crescent, as was Mohammed Hababa, the Tanzim operative who sent her on her mission. She left the West Bank by way of an ambulance. ⁵⁴
On March 27, 2002, a Tanzim member who worked as a Red Crescent ambulance driver was captured with explosives in his ambulance. A child disguised as a patient was riding in the ambulance along with the child’s family. The explosives were found under the stretcher the “sick” child was laying on. ⁵⁵
On May 17, 2002, an explosive belt was found in a Red Crescent ambulance at a checkpoint near Ramallah. The bomb, the same type generally use in suicide bombings, was hidden under a gurney on which a sick child was lying. The driver, Islam Jibril, was already wanted by the IDF, and admitted that this was not the first time that an ambulance had been used to transport explosives or terrorists. In a statement issued the same day, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that it “understands the security concerns of the Israeli authorities, and has always acknowledged their right to check ambulances, provided it does not unduly delay medical evacuations.” The sick passengers in the ambulance were escorted by soldiers to a nearby hospital. ⁵⁶
On June 30, 2002, Israeli troops found 10 suspected Palestinian terrorists hiding in two ambulances in Ramallah. They were caught when soldiers stopped the vehicles for routine checks. ⁵⁷
In December 2003, Rashed Tarek al-Nimr, who worked as a chemist in hospitals in Nablus and Bethlehem, supplied chemicals from the hospitals to Hamas for use in making bombs and admitted he used ambulances to transport the chemicals. He also said the Hamas commanders would hide in hospitals to avoid arrest. ⁵⁸
In December 2004, a Hamas agent with forged documents claiming that he was a cancer patient in need of medical treatment from an Israeli hospital was arrested by security forces. Hamed A-Karim Hamed Abu Lihiya was to meet up with another terrorist, obtain weapons from allies inside Israel, and carry out an attack. That same month, a man recruited by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade to plant a bomb on the railway tracks near Netanya tried to use false papers indicating he needed hospital treatment to enter Israel. Another Hamas terrorist planning a suicide bombing was arrested in March 2005 after pretending to be a kidney donor. ⁵⁹

“Israeli hospitals extend humanitarian treatment to Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and West Bank. These efforts continued when all other cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis came to a halt during the most recent intifada.”
— Palestinian obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish ⁶⁰
On June 20, 2005, Wafa Samir Ibrahim Bas was arrested attempting to smuggle an explosives belt through the Erez crossing. Bas aroused the suspicion of soldiers at the checkpoint when a biometric scanner revealed she was hiding explosives. When she realized they had discovered the explosive belt, she attempted unsuccessfully to detonate it. ⁶¹
Bas had been admitted on humanitarian grounds to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva several months earlier for treatment of massive burns she received as a result of a cooking accident. After her arrest, she admitted that the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade had instructed her to use her personal medical authorization documents to enter into Israel to carry out a suicide attack. In an interview shown on Israeli television, Bas said her “dream was to be a martyr” and that her intent was to kill 40 or 50 people—as many young people as possible.
Interesting Facts

Since its founding in 1996, Save a Child’s Heart, an Israeli humanitarian group that treats children suffering from heart problems, has treated more than 900 children from Gaza. ⁶²
Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian obstetrician and gynecologist from the Jabalya refugee camp in theGaza Strip, who has worked at the Soroka Hospital, wrote that he was “outraged at the cynical and potentially deadly suicide bombing attempt.” Dr. Abuelaish said he does research at the hospital’s Genetic Institute and has warm relations with his colleagues. “I make a point, whenever I’m at the hospital, of visiting Palestinian patients,” he said. “I also schedule appointments for other Gaza residents, and even bring medication from Soroka to needy patients in the Strip. . . . On the very day that she planned to detonate her bomb, two Palestinians in critical condition were waiting in Gaza to be taken for urgent treatment at Soroka.”
Dr. Abuelaish added, “Wafa was sent to kill the very people in Israel who are healing Palestinians from theGaza Strip and West Bank. What if Israeli hospitals now decide to bar Palestinians seeking treatment? How would those who sent Bas feel if their own relatives, in need of medical care in Israel, are refused treatment?” ⁶³
By using this tactic, the Palestinians have reinforced the necessity of retaining the checkpoints and forced Israel to carry out more stringent inspections, yet another example of how terrorists are making life unnecessarily difficult for innocent Palestinians.
Despite a number of other cases where Palestinian terrorists tried to take advantage of the “medical route” to infiltrate Israel, more than 18,000 Palestinians from Gaza, and 175,000 from the West Bank, were allowed to travel to hospitals in Israel in 2010 to receive treatment from some of the finest medical facilities in the world. This includes approximately 7,500 children. Many of these patients receive life-saving treatments that are not available in the Palestinian territories. ⁶⁴
Case Study

Picture a 19-year-old soldier commanding a checkpoint when an ambulance arrives. Inside is a woman who is seemingly pregnant and who appears to be in pain; her husband is also highly anxious.
But the soldier has been warned about an ambulance bearing a pregnant woman who is not really pregnant. The intelligence said that underneath an ambulance'sstretcher a wanted terrorist is hiding with an explosive belt for a suicide attack.
It is a hot day and there is a long line of cars. His commanders are yelling at him on the two-way radio, “Do not let ambulances without being thoroughly checked, there may very well be terrorists inside!” To complicate the picture, a news video crew is present.

The soldier has to make an incredible number of decisions in a very short time. He is only 19 and has no medical training. He knows that if he lets the ambulance go through and it contains a terrorist, then innocent people will die and he will have failed in his mission. On the other hand, if there is not a terrorist in this particular ambulance, and he delays a truly pregnant woman from reaching a hospital, the lives of the mother and baby could be endangered.
What would you do?

by Guest Sun Apr 10, 2016 12:10 am

by Guest Sun Apr 10, 2016 12:13 am

Again its simple, seek peace and stop terrorist attacks on Israelis

Where is the medical evidence that proves the check points cause a child to be still born in all the claimed cases.

Or is it sadly they would have been born still born anyway?

by Guest Sun Apr 10, 2016 12:19 am

https://cintayati.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/un-hcr-report-on-palestinian-women-giving-birth-at-israeli-chechpoints-jan-2010/

by Guest Sun Apr 10, 2016 12:20 am

http://newint.org/blog/2011/07/13/palestine-birth-at-checkpoint/

by Guest Sun Apr 10, 2016 12:20 am

https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/deliberate-harassment-avoidable-death-of-pregnant-women-their-babies-at-israeli-checkpoints-incl-video/

by Guest Sun Apr 10, 2016 12:41 am

Again where is the medical evidence these babies were born stillborn because of checkpoints.
A number of children die each year as stillborn
Where is in each case, is the conclusive evicdence that shows that it was stopping at the checkpoint that caused the baby to be born still born?
Again sadly this is just where sadly some children have been born still born.

What I can easily do is go off the figures

That state that between 2000 and 2006 at least 69 children were born still born.

A study of Palestinian babies born stillborn ion 2010 at Rafidia Hospita was 41 deaths
This is in the hospital itself off

In 2010, a total of 5,644 women gave birth to 5,782 babies, of whom 41 were stillbirths, that is, a stillbirth rate of 7.1/1,000 births (95% confidence interval 5.2–9.5). Premature babies had a higher risk of being a stillbirth. For small babies, the lower the birth weight the higher was the probability of being a stillbirth, and for babies weighing 4,500 g or more there was a higher risk of being stillborn. The risk of stillbirth was also higher among babies from mothers with high haemoglobin concentration, but low maternal haemoglobin was not associated with stillbirths.

by Guest Sun Apr 10, 2016 1:20 am

Oh and by the way, here is the study.
Which states and gives reason how and why it could be critical to detain pregnant women in regards to obstetric emergencies. This is the only menion they make to the checkpoints in the report, which is of course very relevant. As such an emergency requires crucial medical assistance. Not in one case in their conclusions, do they link any stillborn babies cause of death to checkpoints.

They do state the reasons why.

Results

In 2010, 5,644 women gave birth at gestational age ≥28 weeks at Rafidia Hospital (Table 1); this resulted in 5,782 babies: 5,514 (95.4%) singletons, 244 (4.2%) twins, and 24 triplets (0.4%). The mothers had a mean age of 27 years, ranging from 15 to 48 years, and around a quarter of them gave birth for the first time. Anaemia (Hb <110 g/L) was observed in 2,142 mothers (37.0%) and high Hb (i.e. ≥145 g/L) in 53 (0.9%) women. In the same year, 2010, another 26 births had gestational age 22–27 weeks and 5 were stillbirths.

Stillborn under occupation ?report=thumb

Table 1
Characteristics of 5,644 women delivering at a tertiary care hospital in Nablus, 2010
There were 41 stillbirths recorded during the study period, resulting in a stillbirth rate of 7.1/1,000 births (for gestational age≥28 weeks). A total of 4,180 (72.3%) babies were born after a normal delivery. Caesarean section (CS) was done for 1,512 of all the babies (26.2%), among them were 14 (34%) stillbirths where indications were obstetric such as repeated sections, failed induction, or other maternal reasons. Stillbirth rates and risk of stillbirth by determinants are shown in Table 2. In unadjusted logistic regression, the risk of a stillbirth was six times higher among women with high Hb, whereas women with anaemia did not have increased risk. A stillbirth was much more common among babies with low birth weight than normal-sized babies, and babies with a high birthweight had almost six times higher risk of stillbirth. There were more stillbirths among premature than among term babies. In multivariable regression, significant associations remained among babies of low and high birth weight, premature babies, and babies of mothers with high Hb. The analysis showed that gestational age and birth weight contributed to 10% and 13% of the variation, respectively, being two distinct determinants.

Table 2
Stillbirth rates by maternal and foetal determinants among 5,782 babies born at a tertiary hospital in Nablus, 2010

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Discussion

In this study from a large hospital in Nablus, at which more than half of all deliveries in the area take place, we found that 7.1‰ (95% CI 5.2–9.5) were stillborn, which is not statistically different from the official numbers of the governorate of 9.5‰ (7), but different from the 3.6‰ reported from the West Bank, the latter possibly reflecting incomplete reporting. With a very high proportion of the population's reported deliveries taking place in the hospitals (7), we believe that our results reflect fairly well the rate of stillbirths in this population. The estimated stillbirth rates in Jordan and Egypt (13 and 10‰, respectively) in 2006 were comparable, whereas neighbouring Israel had a lower rate, 5‰ (6). We also believe that the present study by independently replicating the results of the governmental registry confirms their reliability.
A strength of our study was that we used data from a real-life situation registered at a large maternity unit covering a sizable population. A register is also a potential weakness, as some errors will occur during the registration process, and some variables can be missing. Transcribing and digitalizing the data can also introduce errors, but this was controlled for by repeat entry. Incomplete recording cannot be excluded, but the fact that the present results corresponded well with official reports on stillbirths suggests that the number is small. Some associations appear statistically significant but rely on very small numbers of stillbirths (e.g. high maternal Hb); here interpretation must be done with caution. Furthermore, even though almost all deliveries in Nablus take place in health facilities making their registers fairly representative for the population, those few who do not may be a selected group of higher risk for adverse outcomes, causing a possible underestimation of the stillbirth rate in the present study. Similarly, an unknown difference in preference of admission to various institutions may affect risk distribution and estimates. Although we believe the present estimate is a fair representation for the population, we acknowledge that the study is not strictly population based and therefore has to be regarded as an approximation.
In our study, the pregnant women with high Hb had six times higher risk of having a stillborn baby, but this condition was observed in less than 1% and is therefore not a prominent public health problem. On the other hand, low Hb was a common condition in this population (37%) but not a significant risk factor for stillbirth as observed in other studies (14, 15). It may raise the question whether the cut off of Hb<110 g/L for anaemia in pregnancy endorsed by WHO is set too high for the present study population. Hb falls during pregnancy due to physiological dilution reaching a minimum in early third trimester, leading to misclassifications in the present study where Hb was taken at admission for birth.
High Hb concentration is also known to be associated with pre-eclampsia (16), that is, placental insufficiency and impaired foetal growth. However, the birth register had no information about blood pressure and previous pre-eclampsia to further explore this link. Adding such information would improve the utility of the register for research on common causes of maternal morbidity, foetal growth restriction, prematurity, and stillbirth.
Small and large babies were associated with increased risk of stillbirth in line with other studies (17, 18). Stillbirth occurred more commonly among prematurely born, and their birth weight was lower than their peers. Although this finding is in line with previous reports showing that growth-restricted foetuses have an increased risk of stillbirth (19, 20), the uncertainty of birth weight has to be kept in mind since the weight of the foetus falls after death, and this reduction increases with time. In our cases, we had no information time of foetal death. Identifying pregnancies at risk of developing foetal growth restriction and pre-eclampsia (e.g. having previously had pre-eclampsia or growth restricted baby) could lead to a more focused follow up, including ultrasound monitoring of growth and thus timely intervention to avoid intrauterine foetal death. The largest babies also had an increased risk of stillbirth, although almost all of them were full term and also had an increased risk of stillbirth. Hyperglycaemia, particularly when combined with macrosomia (21), has an increased risk of intrauterine death, but macrosomia is also associated with obstructed labour with ensuing complications, including fresh stillbirth. Adding information on maternal height and weight (for BMI) could help assess the health and nutritional status of the pregnant population and its risks for developing diabetes, hypertension, and other pregnancy-related complications such as stillbirth (22).
More information on when the baby ceased quickening and a more detailed assessment of the neonate concerning maceration and other signs would help identify intrapartum deaths that are more likely to be prevented by timely interventions.
We also acknowledge the value of recording the 5 stillbirths among 26 births (19%) between 22 and 28 weeks of gestation. They constitute an important supplement giving a more complete view of perinatal care, showing that even this early stage of pregnancy needs further attention to identify which of these deaths are due to preventable conditions.

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Conclusions

In this study from the Palestinian territory, we found a rate of stillbirth of 7.1‰, which is in line with the reported figures from these areas. Prematurity, small foetuses, foetal macrosomia, and maternal haemoconcentration were significant risk factors and could be considered when designing the strategy of antenatal care with the aim of reducing stillbirths (and perinatal mortality) in the population. We believe that including information on maternal height and weight, blood pressure, and albuminuria in addition to available information on hyperglycaemia would enhance the registry's value as a tool for designing antenatal care and intrapartum monitoring. There is also a need to understand more precisely how many stillborns are due to intrapartum death.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157139/

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by Guest Sun Apr 10, 2016 1:30 am

So to conclude and what disappoints me
Poor unverified claims again are made on israel.
Where they would not even be a need for checkpoints, if Palestinian terrorists had not constantly yearly commit acts of terror against israel and its people.
Which they have a right to place the security of their people first.
But to me the telling fact is that is that no link at all was made to any of the deaths in 2010 as to being linked to checkpoints
So we see articles that offer no evidence to link the deaths, but make unsubstantiated claims blaming babies being stillborn because of checkpoints

Here again is a classic example of how this is jut one of numerous unfounded and unsubstantiated claims are made onto Israel .

So why do they make these unsubstantiated claims

To promote a view of hate against Israel, by dehumanizing them as a people.

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Stillborn under occupation