VOA标准英语2010年-Haitians See Pregnancies Rise in Quake

Since a January earthquake in Haiti, tent camps have become home to hundreds of thousands of people, including newly pregnant women. Some Haitians fear unplanned pregnancies¹ in the camps may fuel a baby boom in the capital.

Denise Cheristal, 35, knows that she and her teenage son were lucky to escape with their lives from the January earthquake in Haiti. She now lives in a tent camp, where residents are packed together tightly with little access to clean water or health services.

Amid all the other changes, Cheristal says the quake also affected² her outlook on the future.

She says her son was nearly killed in the quake and that, without him, she would have no other children. So she and her husband decided³ to have another child. Cheristal's baby is due in a couple weeks.

More than nine months after the quake, Cheristal sees other, younger women around the city who also are pregnant.

She says right now there a lot of pregnant women, but they may not have planned it like she did.

Around Port-au-Prince, some Haitians express concern about the number of young people getting pregnant without planning for it. Some fear that pregnant women and newborns face major health risks in a city where the quake made resources and public services scarce.

At one tent camp in the Delmas neighborhood, Lifrane Herold runs a small medical clinic backed by a local church. He says, with limited resources, they struggle to offer pre-natal care to about 40 pregnant women there.

Herold says some of the women are nearly ready to give birth, and others are about three to four months pregnant.

Herold pointed⁴ out three pregnant women nearby, who are in their early 20s. When asked if their pregnancies were planned, all three women said their babies were a gift from God.

Dinette Delon says she already has one child, and her baby is due in February.

Delon says most women do not want to have babies in the camps, because the living conditions are so difficult. She says the tents are very hot, so she plans to leave the capital and return to her hometown after the baby is born.

Health workers say condoms are available to adults in the camps to help prevent unplanned pregnancies. But some young people admit they do not always take precautions.

St. Louis Jean Reynold and his girlfriend are expecting their first child in a few months. He said they were doing nothing to prevent pregnancy⁵, so it was only a matter of time.

Reynold says he was not surprised about the pregnancy, because they sit around all day in the camp and eventually you have an urge to be intimate with your partner.

His girlfriend, Vesia Louis-Dour, says she is worried about how they will care for their child, because neither of them has a job. She said given the conditions in the camp, she had not been planning to start a family.

Louis-Dour says she does not want any more children, because life in the camps is hard enough for adults, let alone a baby.

After her baby is born, Louis-Dour says she plans to investigate different forms of contraception. But she says it may hard to find, as Haiti's health system struggles to rebuild from the earthquake and give assistance to hundreds of thousands of people in need.

1 pregnancies   

怀孕，妊娠( pregnancy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Since the wartime population needed replenishment, pregnancies were a good sign. 最后一桩倒不失为好现象，战时人口正该补充。
• She's had three pregnancies in four years. 她在四年中怀孕叁次。

2 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

5 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。