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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Maternal mortality rises in Bengal but goal within reach

Maternal mortality rises in Bengal but goal within reach

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published Published on Jul 8, 2011   modified Modified on Jul 8, 2011

-The Telegraph

 

Bengal is the only state in India where maternal mortality rate has increased over a recent three-year period, although it is close to achieving key millennium development goal targets, indicating human and social development, for 2015.

The findings of the latest nation-wide sample registration survey (SRS) shows that India’s maternal mortality rate (MMR), the number of women between 15 and 49 years dying from childbirth associated causes per 100,000 live births, declined from 254 during 2004-06 to 212 during 2007-09.

But Bengal’s MMR rose during the same period from 141 to 145, according to the SRS, which is based on a survey of 1.4 million households drawn from states across India.

“This isn’t alarming, but this is not a good sign,” said Bhaskhar Mishra, deputy registrar-general involved in the SRS. “Bengal’s health authorities need to try and understand why the number has increased. Is this a real marginal increase, or is it the result of sample fluctuations?”

Bengal’s MMR had substantially declined from 194 during the 2001-2003 SRS to 141 during 2004-06. Despite the latest increase in MMR, the state is close to the millennium development goal (MDG) targets that aim at a 75 per cent reduction in MMR and a 66 per cent reduction in child mortality from 1990 levels by 2015.

“Bengal’s health indicators are better today than many other states, but the pace of progress appears to have slowed in the past five years,” said a senior official who requested anonymity.

The infant mortality ratio (IMR), deaths in children below one year per 1,000 live births, in Bengal, for instance, reduced 13 points between 2001 and 2004 — from 51 per 1,000 live births to 38. But between 2005 and 2009, the IMR has dropped only five points — from 38 to 33.

The official said it is ironic that this slow down appears to have coincided with the launch of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in 2005, a Union government programme to increase public health infrastructure and staff in rural areas.

“It is possible that the improvements in the MMR figures we’ve observed in the other states are a consequence of some of the initiatives taken under the NRHM,” the official said.

Assam’s MMR, 480 during 2004-06, has declined to 390, but its is still the highest among all states.

Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra have already achieved the MDG’s MMR target of 109 by 2015 in case of India, while Andhra Pradesh, Bengal, Gujarat, and Haryana are close to achieving it.

The survey has shown that India’s overall IMR reduced from 53 in 2008 to 50 in 2009. The under-five mortality rate has dropped from 69 in 2008 to 64 in 2009.

“We see improvements in maternal mortality and child mortality,” said C. Chandramouli, India’s registrar-general and census commissioner. “But the under-five child mortality rate in rural areas (71 per 1,000 live births) has not dropped quickly enough to reach the MDG targets.”

But Kerala, Tamil Nadu, have already achieved the MDG’s IMR target of 28 per 1,000 live births, and Bengal, Delhi, and Maharashtra with figures below 35 are close to achieving that.

The survey suggests that the total fertility rate in 2009 was 2.6, the same as in 2008. Census officials estimate that at current fertility rates, it will take another decade for the total fertility rate to drop to the “replacement rate” of 2.1 — an average woman has two children.

Bengal is among nine states where the total fertility rate is already below 2.1. The others include the four southern states, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Punjab.

This replacement rate is a necessary condition for population stabilisation — the point at which the number of people born is nearly equal to the number of people dying — but not enough.

After the fertility rate reaches 2.1, it could take many decades before stabilisation actually occurs. Kerala, for instance, achieved a fertility rate of 2.1 in the late 1980s, but the population there is still growing at about 8 persons per 1,000 each year, officials said.

“We expect population stabilisation to occur only towards the end of the century,” Mishra said.

The Telegraph, 8 July, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110708/jsp/nation/story_14212252.jsp


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