In Ukraine, mothers bring light of new life into the darkness

_{New and expecting mothers are in desperate need of health services and safety. UNICEF is delivering supplies to help facilities provide the support they need.}

KYIV, Ukraine – Yuliya gently rocks her newborn baby in the dank basement of a medical centre in Kyiv. Vera is only days old, but her life is already in danger.  

“We’re sitting here in the basement, we’ve been crying,” Yuliya says. “It’s terrifying to see smoke and shelling. We’re doing everything we can to save our children.” 

It took Yuliya two days traveling on foot from her home outside Kyiv before she reached the safety of the Kyiv Regional Perinatal Center. With the devastating violence, Yuliya had no choice but to try to find a safe place to deliver her child. She admits there were moments when she thought she might not make it here at all amid the shelling and explosions that have rocked the area in recent days. 

“I had to travel across fields and through forests,” she says, adding that due to certain health issues, not every facility would have been able to help her safely deliver her child. “But thanks to God and the doctors, I now have a baby – and I’m alive.”

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