Ukraine, Clarissa Ward, 5 months pregnant war correspondent: “I have a lot of energy and I’m not huge yet”

She is five months pregnant with her third child, already has a clearly visible belly and is recounting the war in Ukraine from the front. The journalist Clarissa Ward, 43 years old at the end of January, CNN’s main international correspondent, decided to leave, despite her pregnancy. She is now in Kharkiv filming a special to be aired on CNN on the anniversary of the war next month. She had already been in Ukraine for 12 weeks in February 2022at the beginning of the conflict.

“Obviously, it’s a different experience to come back 20 weeks pregnant,” she explained to People. “I won’t be going anywhere on the front lines and the team have gone to great lengths to locate all hospital facilities along our routes. It’s quite demanding, with the long journeys and the bitter cold, and you have to pay attention to your personal care, but I remind myself that thousands of Ukrainian women experience this every day».

Ward, married to Philipp von Bernstorff, is already the mother of Caspar, 2 years old, and Ezra, 4. She is in her second trimester of pregnancy and feels fine. «I am not nauseous and have a lot of energyand I’m not huge yet.”

The choice of the journalist, however, has raised some perplexities. Monica Maggioni, director of Tg1explains a Republic that, out of respect for individual freedom, as director of a newspaper, «I would not prevent a pregnant correspondent from going to Ukraine. Always after having made sure that there are no objective weaknesses or even bizarre motivations that push her to leave”. That said, he adds, “I personally wouldn’t have chosen CNN colleague Clarissa Ward. Honestly, I’m not judging her. In my career I have always started, even in very complicated situations. But working in a war zone while expecting a baby seems like something else to me. It means exposing the unborn child to enormous risks and take on really big responsibilities. It is an extreme choice, to be evaluated carefully ».

The journalist Tiziana Ferrario, on the staff of TG1 since the early eighties, who was sent to Afghanistan when her son was 11 years old, believes that «no one has the right to judge the choices of Clarissa, mother of two other children. It’s a personal decision agreed with her family. The only problem I see is that now the news has become her and this is never good for a journalist, especially in a war zone», explains su Article21. «Pregnancy is not a disease but a moment of joy. Some women may have health problems and it is right that they protect themselves, but if a mother is well, the decision to continue working is hers alone. Clarissa Ward is an extreme example, sure, but that’s the job she loves and no one is forcing her to stay in Ukraine. It is his decision and must be respectednot judged through the lens of prejudice”.

On the other hand, Clarissa Ward, during her previous pregnancies, she had been a correspondent from Bangladesh, Yemen, St. Maarten after Hurricane Irma and from Greenland, where she camped on the -27 degree ice sheet for CNN’s Global Warning documentary.

Reflecting on his business trip to Yemen, he said: “If I could go back, I would never do it again. The real risk was that if there was some sort of complication with the pregnancy, I simply wouldn’t be able to get to a proper medical facility.” However, the journalist had added that «the main way in which my work has been influenced by the birth of my two children is this intense emotional connection that I can no longer turn off now. It has always been upsetting to see a child suffer in any kind of conflict. Now it’s unbearable. And, as crazy as it sounds, I’d also like to see more mother journalist war correspondentsbecause believe it or not, and as ridiculous as that sounds, I think things might look a little different.”