When Lawan Mustafa's wife, nine months pregnant, woke up bleeding in the middle of the night, she looked at her husband and warned him: don't go to the hospital.

Despite a base full of troops stationed on the outskirts of the northeastern Nigerian town where they live, Magumeri is known to crawl with jihadists at night -- as well as anti-jihadist vigilantes who might view Mustafa as a suspect.

Nigeria is the world's most dangerous country to give birth in, with a maternal mortality rate of 993 per 100,000 births, according to the World Health Organization.

Corruption is endemic and doctors are constantly on strike, demanding backpay and upgrades to aging facilities.

But in the northeast, in the throes of a 16-year-old insurgency, an untold number of women never make it to the hospital

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