Key maternity services, including delivery rooms, triage areas, and operating rooms, have been relocated to fortified underground complexes.

By Abe Mermelstien, Jewish Breaking News

As war continues to disturb Israeli life and sirens send millions rushing for shelter, inside Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital, a very different sound fills the air, the cries of hundreds of newborn babies.

Since the outbreak of the war, over a thousand infants have been delivered at the hospital, with staff describing the process as both overwhelming and deeply inspiring.

In the midst of fear and uncertainty, the nurses of the maternity ward are calling these newborns the country’s “real victory.”

The head of nursing at the maternity and newborn division, Bat Ami Israel, paints a vivid picture of two parallel realities taking place at once.

“On the one hand, there is a war outside, and on the other hand, inside the hospital, life must continue in full force.”

To maintain that continuity, Shaare Zedek has undergone a difficult and dramatic transformation. Key maternity services, including delivery rooms, triage areas, and operating rooms, have been relocated to fortified underground complexes.

These protected spaces allow doctors and nurses to continue working even during active missile alerts.

“Even when there are sirens, we do not stop,” a staff member said. “The delivery rooms are protected, and everything continues as usual.”

Doctors emphasized that even the most sensitive procedures continue uninterrupted. “We perform C-sections, we deliver babies, everything happens here, even during sirens.”

The war has also changed the behavior of mothers in labor. “There are women who come much earlier because they are afraid they won’t make it in time if there is a siren,” a midwife said.

“And there are those who come at the very last minute, and then it becomes a very quick birth.”

In some cases, the situation becomes scary. One woman gave birth just outside the hospital, in the parking lot. “The baby didn’t wait.” Medical teams rushed outside to assist in the delivery.

Another difference comes from the absence of fathers. With tens of thousands of reservists deployed, many husbands are unable to be present for the birth of their children.

“There are fathers who are at war now,” hospital staff said, “and they are not here for the birth.”

So nurses say they have taken on an additional emotional role. “We try to be there for the mothers, not only medically, but also emotionally.”

Despite the pressure, the hospital has expanded its capabilities, opening additional induction rooms and increasing staffing near protected areas.

“We prepared for this scenario, since we understood that births do not stop, even during war.” And indeed, they haven’t.

The post How Shaare Zedek continues to manage thousands of births during war appeared first on World Israel News.

Midwives and obstetricians at Israel’s busiest maternity ward deliver seven pairs of twins in a single 24-hour period.

By Abigail Klein Leichman, ISRAEL21c

The maternity department at Shaare Zedek Medical Center is the busiest in Israel, handling more than 22,000 births every year at its main and satellite hospitals in Jerusalem.

Yet even here, the arrival of seven pairs of twins – that’s 14 babies, all doing well – in a single 24-hour period between July 12 and 13 was a noteworthy event.

For those with a more spiritual bent it’s also a lucky number. In numerology, 14 represents new beginnings and positive change.

A hospital spokesman told ISRAEL21c that this represents a new record for the medical center. “In recent recorded memory, the previous high was five [sets of twins in one day],” he said.

The birth mothers included Jewish and Arab women from Jerusalem and beyond.

One of the moms, Ma’ayan Luzon Peretz, said she’d come “from afar” to deliver her “two sweeties” because she’d had a previous positive experience giving birth at Shaare Zedek.

She arrived for the big occasion in style, with the nails of one hand polished blue and the nails of the other pink, in honor of the son and daughter she was soon to deliver with her husband at her side.

Another mother told reporters that she had waited 12 years for her first child, and now, three years later, was excited to add a pair of twins to the family she and her husband had yearned for so long to build.

Shaare Zedek has six maternity wards in all: four at the main Shaare Zedek Medical Center campus in Beit HaKerem and another two at downtown Bikur Cholim Hospital, a dedicated maternity hospital.

In June 2022, ISRAEL21c reported that identical twins Yael Yishai and Avital Segel gave birth to baby boys on the same day at Shaarei Zedek.

The medical center recently opened a boutique maternity hotel where new mothers can spend a few pampering days with their new baby after being discharged from the hospital.

Throughout Israel, 178,000 babies were born in 2022 according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.

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“It is not every day that one witnesses the convergence of glorious history and technological advancements in the medical field.”

By Pesach Benson, TPS

In a meticulously planned operation that took five months to organize, a pair of 2,000-year-old coffin lids from ancient Egypt was transferred from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to undergo a CT scan on Friday.

Part of the museum’s esteemed Egyptian collection, these intricate coffin lids carved from sycamore wood were subjected to an examination at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center in order to unravel the techniques employed by craftsmen during their creation thousands of years ago.

The collaboration between the museum and the hospital could set a precedent for merging historical artifacts with cutting-edge medical technology to better understand the past.

CT (computerized tomography) uses a series of X-rays taken from different angles to create cross-sectional images of bones, organs and blood vessels. Usually, they are used to diagnose certain types of cancer, heart disease, blood clots, broken bones, bowel and spinal disorders, and broken bones, among other things.

“Through the scan, we were able to identify cavities in the wood that were filled with plaster as part of the preparation for the coffins’ decoration, as well as sections that were entirely cast from plaster instead of being directly carved from the wood,” said Nir Or Lev, the Israel Museum’s curator of Egyptian archeology.

“The examination has shed light on the craftsmanship of the ancient artisans responsible for creating these coffin lids, thereby significantly contributing to our ongoing research,” he said.

The first coffin lid, belonging to a ceremonial singer named Lal Amun-Ra, dates back to approximately 950 BCE. Inscribed on the lid are the words “Jed-Mot,” representing the name of the deceased, alongside a blessing. The second coffin lid, dating from the period between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE, once belonged to an Egyptian nobleman named Petah-Hotep.

“It is not every day that one witnesses the convergence of glorious history and technological advancements in the medical field,” said Shlomi Hazan, the chief radiologist of Shaare Zedek’s imaging department.

“The high-resolution scans enabled us to differentiate between various materials, such as wood, plaster, and air spaces. Moreover, the cross-sectional scans unveiled the tree rings, and three-dimensional reconstructions were generated to aid the research team in analyzing the composition of the different materials,” Hazan said.

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