The Forlorn Status of Indian Mothers

By Nivedita Saini

India may boast of getting close to becoming a super power on one hand; however another ugly truth is that India shares space with less developed nations like Swaziland, Papua New Guinea and Nigeria, as far as the condition of mothers is concerned. It is ranked at a disheartening 66th out of the 71 less developed countries. These statistics have been revealed by a worldwide review. the issue in question being-how thorny or how undemanding was survival for mothers.

Amongst our neighbours, China ranks 15th while Pakistan is worse off than us at the 69th spot. In another unattached survey of the same topic in least developed countries, Nepal and Bangladesh ranked 11th and 13th respectively.

Some appalling facts have been brought out in a current report about the state of the mothers in the world. This report has been submitted by an American humanitarian organization called ‘Save the Children’.

The criteria of analysis for this survey included lifetime risks of maternal mortality, proportion of women using modern contraception, competent attendant at delivery, female life expectancy, expected number of years of recognized schooling for females, maternity vacation benefits and participation of women in the national government.

It divulges the information that, in India, one out of seventy women confronts a lifetime threat of dying during childbirth. In China the figures stand at one in thirteen hundred, while in Pakistan they are one in seventy four. This survey identifies the condition of mothers in 146 different countries.

While a woman living in New Zealand will typically enjoy full formal education and live to be 83 years old and 72% of those of child bearing age use some modern method of contraception, still one out of every one hundred and sixty seven mothers will lose a child before it turns five.

It also talks of the poor state of institutional deliveries in India. The findings reveal that that over 53% of births in India are not attended to by skilled health personnel while only 43% Indian women were using modern contraceptives.

The report further goes on to disclose the detail that the expected number of years for formal female schooling was ten in India, as compared to seventeen in the US and UK and sixteen in Israel.

In order to justify its existence, the Union Health Ministry reacted by stating that the Maternal Mortality ratio in India had dropped from 398 in (1997-98) to 301 in (2001-2003) per 100,000 live births.

The report also estimates that every year, 50 million females in developing countries deliver at home with no proficient attention and about 533,000 women die during childbirth. While in a woman’s lifetime, the peril of dying due to maternal reasons is one in 26 in Africa, it is one in 120 women in Asia, one in 290 women in Latin America and one in 7,300 women in developed countries.

The children of mothers, who die young, are three to ten times more likely to die early. Four million newborn offspring’s die in the first month mostly from preventive causes, every year. This also brings to light the intense connection between the well being of mothers and their children.

The risks to poor and uneducated mothers who are unable to access healthcare rise exponentially. Such women seldom get ample nursing during pregnancy and childbirth. Pregnant women in developing countries face a much higher risk of maternal death than women in developed countries.

Other highlights of this report include the massive discrepancy between countries in the developed world and those at the other end of the scale namely Niger, Chad, Sierra Leone and Angola.

The version further goes on to give away the detail that the expected number of years for formal female schooling was ten in India as compared to seventeen in the US and UK and sixteen in Israel.

Going by all these figures, well, “Yes!”, it is tough to be an Indian mother.