Aid for unborn babies

BANGKOK - As millions of tsunami survivors across Asia struggle to survive on a trickle of emergency medicines and food, aid has also started arriving for the next generation of survivors - Asia's unborn babies.

There are at least 150,000 pregnant women in tsunami-hit areas who may face complications, including trauma-induced miscarriages, and need urgent medical and nutritional support, the United Nations population agency (UNFPA) said.

"Over 50,000 women within the affected communities will give birth in the next three months," it said.

"The damage to health facilities and loss of basic delivery care supplies has jeopardised their chances to deliver under clean and safe circumstances," it said, adding that 15 per cent of births had complications under normal conditions.

On the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the worst-hit area with 80,000 dead, the agency estimates there are 25,000 pregnant women and new mothers, many suffering from illness, injury and trauma, who will need emergency care to avoid maternal and infant deaths.

It said not only had hospitals been destroyed, but traditional village midwives were also sidelined.

"Many of the midwives who traditionally provide home-based delivery support have been displaced and no longer have even basic supplies," said the agency.

The UNFPA said it was supplying US$3 million ($4.22 million) for basic maternity and hygiene kits for women, which would include soap for washing hands, a piece of plastic sheeting to lay on the ground, a clean razor blade for cutting the umbilical cord, a piece of string for tying it and a cloth to wrap the baby in.

With whole communities devastated from Sri Lanka to Indonesia, many women and young girls have become heads of families that survived the tsunami which hit Asia on Boxing Day, killing more than 124,000 people.

The UN children's organisation Unicef estimates that one third of tsunami victims are children and thousands more have been left orphaned across Asia.

It has launched an operation to try and reunite these children with extended families, setting up 30 child centres in camps in northern Sumatra alone.

- REUTERS