'Inadequate monitoring of maternal deaths in India'
New Delhi: Inadequate monitoring of maternal deaths following child birth is coming in the way of India meeting international standards in obstetric care, an international human rights body has said.
According to Human Rights Watch, the government counts the number of births in health clinics and hospitals, but these are often woefully under-resourced and under-staffed.
Many women die or suffer serious injury after giving birth.
"The Indian government does not monitor what happens to women after childbirth, especially in the first 24 to 72 critical hours, when the chances of dying are the highest," the report by the rights body said.
Without this information, it cannot save women who go back home and die or develop long-lasting complications, it added.
The Indian government should change its approach to monitoring and examine whether women with pregnancy-related complications are in fact getting the kind of treatment they need and whether they are surviving childbirth in the postpartum period," it said.
The government's new Health Management Information System includes some of this data for monitoring, but it remains to be seen whether this data will be consistently collected and utilised for maternal health care programming at district and state levels.
Bureau Report