Victoriia Poluektova watched from her window as war broke out in Kyiv.
It was at this moment she realised she had to decide whether to deliver her first child in a city under siege or start a risky escape.
"I looked in the sky and I saw three rockets and that's when I thought, 'OK, I need to go,'" she told the ABC.
"I looked outside and I could see a house near our airport just crushed, and we were feeling scared."
Moments later, she started a treacherous evacuation with her husband from the dangerous outer suburb of Ukraine's capital city as Russian tanks and troops edged closer.
She said by the time they reached the train station, it was late evening and everything was "in darkness".
"We didn't have much with us because I couldn't carry so much," she said.
"We have only four bags with us and our documents."
It was a long journey on several packed trains, standing out in the cold at stations, and endless delays. But she said about 24 hours later they arrived in the western city of Lviv.
Ms Poluektova describes it as "our safe place".
"Nice [strangers] took us into their house, so we have a room, a table and a wardrobe. That is all we have now," she said.
Most importantly, two weeks after their journey, she safely delivered her daughter Ksiusha.
'Stress' of war leading to premature births
Lviv has become a haven for many women like Ms Poluektova.
Almost 200 pregnant women have arrived in the past six weeks from all over the country.
But even here, far from the front line, air raid alarms sound almost daily.
Each time, it triggers a panic in the hospital as new mothers scoop up their tiny babies and whatever personal items they can carry and search for safety.
Most staff members and pregnant women are hurried to an underground bomb shelter that is equipped for a long wait.
Dozens of women wait underneath a low concrete ceiling, sitting on bare earth, with a birthing chair and neo-natal incubator ready nearby.
One mother, Mariia Borisenko, clutches her newborn daughter Sofia while crying into her phone.
She told the ABC she was speaking with her two older children who she sent to live with relatives in a small Ukrainian village.
Every air raid alarm makes her scared for their safety.
"We want our children to grow up with an understanding of our country," Ms Borisenko said from the basement bomb shelter.
"We do not want to go elsewhere.
Staff at this hospital are noticing a troubling trend among the country's war babies: a significant rise in the number of infants being born prematurely.
"Premature births increased for this month from more than 10 per cent to more than 20 per cent … so one in 10 to now one in five," Nataliya Veresnyuk, the lead obstetrician at the hospital, told the ABC.
As she talked, she pointed to different areas of the bomb shelter where people were huddled against the walls, settling in for a long wait.
"We think it is because of stress," she added.
"Some of [the mothers] are weak and they refuse to go [into the bomb shelter] … they want to be with their babies."
These vulnerable infants and their mothers are not able to move when air raids sound.
Instead, their ward has been sandbagged and they hope for the best.
Uncertain future for Ukraine’s youngest generation
Doctors at this hospital are worried about the next generation of Ukrainians, knowing that premature births put babies at risk of infection and sometimes can lead to lifelong health conditions.
"I think that these numbers will rise in the future because this war is not over," Mariia Malachynska, head of Lviv Perinatal Regional Services, told the ABC.
"It's hard because our patients — in addition to caring about themselves and their health — they think about their children, their future and, of course, about families they left at the war zone.
She said in besieged cities, the rise in premature births was being observed at even greater levels, particularly in Kharkiv in the country's east.
"The head of Kharkiv's perinatal clinic [said] they got a huge rise, about a 50 per cent increase," Dr Malachynska said.
"The percentage at our hospital is obviously lower but it is a trend we can observe and [it] will keep rising."
For the women who escape, it comes at a cost. Many are separated from family and they face the early days of motherhood alone.
"Everything will be OK for me. I just I'm glad that I have her [Ksiusha] … but I hope she can meet her family on day," Ms Poluektova said.
"I haven't got any relatives here, just good people and that's all, but we are safe and that's what matters."
When Ms Poluektova pondered her daughter's future she became emotional. But it is clear she still holds hope for better times ahead.
"I hope that she will be clever, kind, I don't know about her profession … but I hope she can spend at least the next 18 years in Ukraine.
"It is a good country, it is our country."
