Maternity Care Initiatives in Madhya Pradesh

Janani Suraksha and Janani Express are two major initiatives taken by the Madhya Pradesh government to provide better maternity care to pregnant women. Ambreesh Mishra writes in this article at the India Today, giving some startling facts:

According to official figures in 2004, almost three-fourths (74 per cent) of the total deliveries in the state took place outside medical institutions, in dangerous circumstances under the guidance of ill-trained midwives.

As a result, maternal mortality rate was 498 per lakh and infant mortality rate was 76 per thousand.

However, as is the trend with most of the stories at The Better India, hope was not lost.
With the initiation of Janani Suraksha and Janani Express, the maternal mortality rate has come down to 354 and the infant mortality rate has come down to 66, says the article. Of course, these numbers in isolation are no great reasons for celebration, but seeing that they come from a significantly higher number earlier, I think this is a reason for at least some partial cheer eh?

Some more excerpts:

Thanks to these government initiatives a pregnant woman, enrolled under Janani Suraksha which is run under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), doesn’t need to pay harried visits to unscrupulous nursing homes for her delivery.

Better healthcare is just a call away. Once she goes into labour, her relatives or an anganwadi worker call a helpline for an ambulance.

The call centre directs the nearest ambulance to reach her door and take her to a government hospital or a certified nursing home for safe institutional delivery. And for all this, the woman and her family do not have to pay anything.

Read the complete article here.