Women stranded in Pakistan floods take risky trips to give birth

A mother carries her baby while waiting for medical assistance at a hospital, following rains and floods during the monsoon season in Sehwan, Pakistan September 7, 2022. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

SEHWAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Rubina Mallah took a perilous, three-hour boat journey across flood waters to get to the nearest hospital in time to give birth to her baby son, as the roads leading to the clinic in the southern Pakistani city of Sehwan were submerged.

The 27-year-old is one of tens of thousands of pregnant women displaced by historic floods that have inundated close to a third of the country and affected 33 million people, many now in camps.