This year there has been a sharp rise in the number of stillbirths occurring in villages in the upper Sai Din area of Buthidaung Township in Arakan (Rakhine) State.
So far in the first six months of 2025, DMG has recorded at least five stillbirths in the 18 villages in the Upper Sai Din area, which is near to the Sai Din waterfall.
The rise in the rate of stillbirths is due to the difficulty pregnant women have accessing proper healthcare in the remote villages of the upper Sai Din area, according to healthcare workers in the region.
A healthcare worker in the area said: “In such an extremely remote area, it’s nearly impossible to provide the proper healthcare that every pregnant woman deserves. Transportation is a major challenge too, and because of that, the stillbirth rate is very high.”
The villages in the upper Sai Din area are predominantly home to the Mro and Khimi ethnic groups, who depend mainly on agriculture and natural forest resources for their livelihoods.
It takes at least five hours of travelling on roads and rivers to travel from these villages to the nearest healthcare facilities. The return journey also costs a minimum of 500,000 MMK to make. The high cost and difficulties in reaching healthcare mean that it is very hard for the villagers to access healthcare.
A man from Buthidaung Township said: “Most of the locals don’t have a steady income, so when health problems come up, they just can’t afford to get help. And the cost is even higher because the journey is long and tough.”
There have also been recent cases in Buthidaung Township where both the mother and child died during childbirth.
A woman from Buthidaung Township said: “I went to the hospital to donate blood after getting a call that a pregnant woman urgently needed it. But by the time I got there, the baby had already been stillborn. A few hours later, the mother passed away too. Situations like this really show how serious and worrying things are for pregnant women here.”
Since fighting resumed in Arakan State in November 2023, the junta has imposed strict blockades on all land and river routes into the state and stopped any medicine and a lot of food from entering. This has left all of Arakan State struggling with severe shortages of medicine and essential supplies.
In Arakan State, pregnant women and children under the age of two are also missing out on essential vaccinations, which is raising serious concerns.
