Since the number of digestive illnesses has risen, families are now extremely cautious about feeding their children fresh fruits and vegetables, which may have been contaminated by chemical treatment. When I am in Karakalpakstan I can see the white salt covering the ground and can feel it on my skin and between my teeth. Those most vulnerable to the increased salinization of water and soil are pregnant women and children. Karakalpakstan has the highest levels of maternal and infant mortality in all of Uzbekistan. General illness levels are also high among the same group and many children are born with birth defects.
Anemia is by far the most common illness and almost all women suffer from it.
The collapse of the Soviet Union has aggravated the situation immensely. This belief was justifiable under Soviet times when the construction of good health facilities and hospitals and the training of local scientific and health workers in outlying regions was not considered a priority since seriously ill patients could be sent for treatment to Moscow or Tashkent. The Soviet Union no longer exists and we are left to fend for ourselves without good hospitals, without the vast Aral Sea once teeming with fish and with a frightful ecological situation. Our hospitals lack elementary medicines such that when pregnant women go to the birthhouse for labor, they must bring the necessary drugs with them. No less important are the attitudes of Karakalpak women toward their own health and that of their children.