Theme : Social empowerment, development and management of social sectors/services related to Health, poverty and hunger etc.
Paper:GS-1 and GS-2
TABLE OF CONTENT
- Context
- Child Mortality Rate & Stillbirth
- Sample Registration System (SRS) released in 2022
- Neglected challenges
- Reasons preterm births and stillbirths do not get due attention
- Proven Solutions
Context : Global reports released on child mortality and on stillbirths depict whether India is doing enough for ensuring the health and survival of every child.
Child Mortality Rate & Stillbirth :
Child mortality rate(under-five mortality rate):It refers to the probability of dying between birth and exactly five years of age expressed per 1,000 live births.
Stillbirth
- It is the death or loss of a baby before or during delivery.
- Both miscarriage and stillbirth describe pregnancy loss, but they differ according to when the loss occurs.
- World Health Organization’s Classification : A baby who dies after 28 weeks of pregnancy, but before or during birth, is classified as a stillbirth.
The report on child mortality — Levels and Trends in Child Mortality(by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNIGME) : Globally, five million children died before their fifth birthday (under-five mortality) in 2021.
Sample Registration System (SRS) released in 2022 :
- Wide inter-State variations in child mortality in India.
- For every 1,000 live births: Infant mortality rate in Madhya Pradesh was six-fold of the rate in Kerala.
- The children in rural parts in any age subgroup have much higher mortality rates than their urban counterparts.
Neglected challenges :
- Children being ‘born too early’ (preterm births): ‘preterm babies’ are two to four times at higher risk of death after birth in comparison to those born after 37 weeks of gestation.Globally one in every 10 births is preterm
- India:
- one in every six to seven births is preterm.
- India has a high burden of preterm births
- Stillbirths-the subject of the second report titled ‘Never Forgotten(UNIGME):
- Globally, an estimated 1.9(one point nine)million stillbirths happened in 2021.
- India: around two lakh eighty thousand.
Reasons preterm births and stillbirths do not get due attention :
- Lack of granular and reliable data: While countries have strengthened the mechanisms for tracking child mortality, the data on stillbirths and preterm births are scarce.
- At the global level, the first-ever report on stillbirths was released only in October 2020.
- Lack of timely, granular data on stillbirths from the block, district and State levels.
Proven Solutions :
- Scaling up known and proven interventions and improving the quality of health services.
- The focus must be on increasing access to family planning services
- Improving antepartum services such as health and nutrition, including the intake of iron folic acid by pregnant mothers
- Providing counseling on the importance of a healthy diet, and optimal nutrition
- Identification and management of risk factors.
- Preventing, detecting and managing diseases which put mothers at high risk, such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity and infections.
- Reduce future neurological complications for preterm babies by ensuring the Kangaroo mother care and early initiation of exclusive breastfeeding.
- Monitoring labor and functional referral linkages and improving the quality of health care services will prevent stillbirths.
FAQs :
-
What is the situation of India in Preterm Births?
ANS. In India:
- one in every six to seven births is preterm.
- India has a high burden of preterm births
-
What are the reasons that preterm births and stillbirths do not get due attention ?
ANS.
- Lack of granular and reliable data: While countries have strengthened the mechanisms for tracking child mortality, the data on stillbirths and preterm births are scarce.
- At the global level, the first-ever report on stillbirths was released only in October 2020.
- Lack of timely, granular data on stillbirths from the block, district and State levels.