Transcript:

In Pakistan, a group of midwives is helping provide medical care to expectant parents and babies on the front lines of climate change.

Several times in recent years, extreme rain and melting glaciers have caused widespread flooding in Pakistan. In 2022, flooding was so severe during the monsoon season that a third of the country was underwater.

For people needing prenatal care or a safe place to give birth, the ordeal was frightening.

Mankani: “Some of them were living in flooded areas. They were living in tents. They were living in displacement camps.”

That’s midwife Neha Mankani of the Mama Baby Fund. During this and other floods, her group helped provide maternity care and childbirth support.

And it operates a solar-powered clinic on Baba Island, off the coast of Karachi, to serve coastal communities that are vulnerable to flooding from sea-level rise.

Mankani: “In times of the month that the tide is high, the water comes to right outside my clinic, but it won’t come in because it’s an elevated facility.”

To get patients there, the Mama Baby Fund runs a free boat ambulance.

Mankani: “It goes from island to island picking up women who need to come to us, or they need to go to the city for some kind of emergency care.”

So expectant parents and babies can get the care they need, even during a flood.

Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media