Nearly 30% of Ethiopian women face dual maternal health risks from short birth intervals and poor nutrition

In the highlands and arid lowlands of Ethiopia, a quiet convergence of two well-known dangers has gone unmeasured until now — pregnancies arriving too soon after one another, and bodies left without the iron and folate they need to sustain new life. A national study has found that nearly one in three Ethiopian women carries both burdens at once, with the heaviest concentrations falling in the Somali and Afar regions, where poverty and distance from care compound what biology already makes difficult. The finding asks an old question in a new way: not what harms mothers, but what happens when th