Ukraine’s Maternity Hospitals Under Attack Amid Birth-Rate Crisis
Over the past three years, Ukraine’s healthcare system has faced relentless attacks, and some of the most shocking targets have been maternity hospitals. Imagine this: a heavily pregnant woman lying on a stretcher, her face pale with shock, legs smeared with blood, clutching her unborn child, as the bombed-out ruins of a maternity hospital stand behind her. This was the tragic reality in Mariupol back in March 2022. The woman, Iryna Kalinina, and her baby did not survive the attack, which left the world horrified. Since then, the situation for expectant mothers in Ukraine has only worsened.
More than 2,000 strikes on medical facilities have been recorded since the full-scale invasion began, with 81 of those directly targeting maternity care and delivery rooms. In these hospitals, staff and patients face a constant threat from drones, artillery, and missiles. Medics often have to perform surgeries while explosions rock the building, and women in labor are rushed to shelters as air raid sirens wail. One mother, Olga Shevela, described traveling to the hospital under the shadow of buzzing Shahed drones, knowing the facility itself could be targeted. Just hours after giving birth, she had to shelter with her newborn as nearly twenty explosions hit the city.
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Kharkiv, once home to over 1,000 births a year, now sees fewer than 440. Many women of child-bearing age have fled, leaving hospitals struggling to provide care under constant bombardment. In Sloviansk, the population has halved, yet women still travel over 100 miles to give birth at the city’s last functioning maternity unit, which has survived multiple attacks. Staff there report more premature births and rising health complications, a direct result of living amid constant violence and stress.
In Kherson, the maternity hospital operates underground after repeated attacks. Expectant mothers like Kateryna Osetsymska, 33 weeks pregnant, live in fear, aware that Russian forces are just half a mile away. Doctors warn that stress from the constant threat of attack has led to more miscarriages, increased surgical interventions, and higher mortality rates. Across the country, the combination of fleeing populations, targeted attacks, and fear has created a demographic crisis. Ukraine now records three deaths for every birth, and in 2024, the country had the lowest birth rate in the world according to the CIA’s World Factbook.
Despite these challenges, doctors and staff continue to risk their lives, committed to bringing new life into a country scarred by war. Patients like Dasha Borisenko remain in hospitals for months at a time to protect high-risk pregnancies, while fathers like Vitalii Chernetskyi, injured at the front, hold their newborns with hope amid the ruins of Sloviansk. The resilience of both medical staff and mothers is remarkable, yet the human cost of these targeted attacks is stark, leaving Ukraine facing not only a war on the ground but a silent crisis in its population’s future.
The reality is harsh: these attacks are deliberate, and the consequences extend far beyond the immediate destruction. They strike at the very foundation of life, leaving a nation grappling with fear, loss, and an uncertain future for its youngest generation.
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