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This article is accompanied by 14 photographs by Carlos Garcia Rawlins, see the original article on Reuters.

LOS TEQUES-Venezuela's food shortages, inflation and crumbling medical sector have become such a source of anguish that a growing number of young women are reluctantly opting for sterilisations rather than face the hardship of pregnancy and child-rearing.

Traditional contraceptives like condoms or birth control pills have virtually vanished from store shelves, pushing women towards the hard-to-reverse surgery.

"Having a child now means making him suffer," said Milagros Martinez, waiting on a park bench on a recent morning ahead of her sterilisation at a nearby Caracas municipal health center.

The 28-year-old butcher from the poor outskirts of Caracas decided on the operation after having an unplanned second child because she could not find birth control pills.

Her daily life revolves around finding food: she gets up in the middle of the night to stand in long lines outside supermarkets, sometimes with no choice but to bring along her baby son, who has been sunburnt during hours-long waits.

"I'm a little scared...