Stave-off Maternal Mortality by addressing Maternal Morbidities

The sharp reduction of Maternal Mortality in last two decades in India is nothing less than a dramatic, but welcome event of public health arena in India. However, maternal mortality reflects only the tip of the iceberg of the burden of reproductive illnesses. There is lack of objectively verifiable national data on the magnitude of direct causes of maternal morbidity in India, but based on the global estimate, it may be inferred that it is very high. By the time this work was planned, only three states of India have managed to achieve the reduction of maternal mortality as per the target of MDG 5A. Maharashtra was among those states. Present study was carried in 24 villages of a Primary Health Centre of Central India. A total of 360 mothers who had delivered a baby within the past one year from the date of interview were the study subjects. The study found that 41.1% mothers suffered from at least one 'acute direct maternal morbidity' during their last pregnancy, labour or postpartum period. It was significantly associated with the ANC package utilization.Surprisingly, in spite of ANC services being available at the door step of mothers, the utilization was very poor.