Reduction of Maternal Mortality Rate in India Sample Essay

Reduction of Maternal Mortality Rate in India
Introduction

Reducing maternal mortality ratio is one of India’s main focus in attaining vision 2030. India is the second most populous country in the whole world and a quarter of all pregnancies and deliveries happen in India. This shows the importance of focusing on India as it aims to work towards attaining the vision 2030 SDG number 3.As a growing nation, the state health status is still a concern especially on the maternal and child health sector. It is estimated that maternal mortality rate currently in India is 438/100,000 live birth (Tripathy, 2010) and that’s why the government and other health agencies are working on reducing it to 70/100,000 live births. On ranking India emerges number 25 worldwide among those countries working hard to reduce maternal mortality rate (Bhutta, 2015). This is 59% reduction since 1990. In 2008 India had a great improvement in maternal mortality ratio and it ranked 116out of 171 countries. India is above Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan which have maternal mortality ratio of 340,380 and 260 respectively (Kumar, 2008). Reduction of Maternal Mortality Rate in India Sample Essay

Currently the maternalmortality rate stands at 174 deaths/100,000 live births as at 2005 statistics (Derman, 2006).Despite substantial progress, there is some scope for further improvement of quality of infrastructure and services. With all this improvements in maternal health, there is still room for improvements and services to ensure that they are having maternal mortality rate of less than 70/100,000 per year. In this essay I will demonstrate that India is likely to reduce the maternal mortality ratio to less than 70/100,000 because of the various structures which have been put in place:

Historical Factors

Historically, Reviews on maternal death have proved to be a very good instrument in reduction of maternal mortality rates. India’s history has been key in analyzing what caused death in women who are pregnant and those whohave just delivered (Goldenberg, 2011).

Natural Disasters

Women are mostly affected when disasters strike nations, especially in a poor nation. Often times pregnant women have been seen to be displaced and remain homeless. They receive less support as they are known to bear responsibility of their children and their family. In the past when natural disasters were on the rise in India, maternal mortality rate was high and thiswas attributed to the various effects caused by this disasters like wars. The common natural disasters have declined providing a better environment forwomen who are at a risk for deaths when these disasters happen.Reduction of Maternal Mortality Rate in India Sample Essay

Political change

International agencies shaped political priorities to ensure maternal health has been well taken care of in the past history. The agencies provided financial and various resources needed to ensurematernal health is at its best.National political agencies are also there to ensure the Indian government takes good care of maternal health. Better policies have also been suggested over time toensure national visibility of these issue.

Economic Issue

When a country like India where the Economy has been growing over time, it has also been improving its maternal healthcare to ensure they are in the world grid ofnations which have key interest in the health status of its people.Reduction of Maternal Mortality Rate in India Sample Essay

Cultural Factors

Unacceptable number of deaths have occurred as to a result of the various culturepracticed in India.There is a high level of women who don’t go to school as they remain at home to cook for their families, this shows that there’s high gender inequality in India whereby women don’t access even the basic education to better their lives.With that they don’t seethe need of visiting a proper health facility for maternal health care. Over half of all Indian women deliver without being assisted bya skilled health personnel. In fact the health care givers arediscriminated and give poor care. It is recorded that only 405 of deliveries take place in a health institution. Around 40% of village girlsareusually given away even beforethe age of 18years (Hogan, 2010). Child marriages produce the worst maternalmortality rates. Some traditional practiceslimit the women fromeating until all the men have eaten and if it is a poor family thewomen will go without eating even when sheis pregnant. This will then result topoor nutrition and the end result is malnourished babies who end up suffering and may die (Raj, 2010). There’s also a stigma associated by women who discuss sex, hence limiting them from knowing better about maternalhealth. All these culturalpracticeshavebeen declining with time as civilization is getting deeper in the grass root communities.Reduction of Maternal Mortality Rate in India Sample Essay

Biomedicine

In some cultures it was not applicable forpeople to seek biomedicalservices. Some Indians grew up knowing various herbs should be used for treatment not any interventional medicines. Many Indians stopped going to hospitals because that is where these drugs are usually dispensed. With time, the people have come toappreciate that biomedicine is for their health. It should also be noted that most drugs are actually produced in India.

Structural Factors

The government shouldputin place policies and programs to improve health outcomes. Programs like antenatal care should be well monitored by the government to ensure the best results. These programs include antennal care and maternal health awareness campaigns.

The government should provide more health facilities, train more skilled personnel to improve the health status ofparticular communities. Firm and effective governance is always needed toensure equal policies and programs given out by the government.

Health care needsa combination of varioussystems toensure that it is at its best. When communities have best roads, it will be easier to transport sick people quickly to hospitals. When there’s security in a particular region, resources will be channeled toensure better maternal health other than other than them be channeled to wars and the government will concentrate on maternal health. This applies alsowhen there’s food security and better nutrition (Jokhio, 2005). Various community based organizations have come up to empower women and ensure they have a voice to their matters relating to maternal health are addressed in urgency. Community leaders have made maternal health an agenda ofdiscussion at community level and these has ensured mothers have the best health care.Reduction of Maternal Mortality Rate in India Sample Essay

Critical Factors

In summary

India has made tremendous strides to ensure that it hasthe best maternalhealth for its citizens. Looking from where the countryhas come, we can clearly see that it has a potential of attaining the SDG of 70/100,000 by 2030. Thecountry need to focus on maternal health care as it is the future of the nation. When a country cares for the unborn and the newborns, the country is doing a massive investment for its future (Lawn, 2005).Reduction of Maternal Mortality Rate in India Sample Essay

Implication for professional practice:

The social production and distribution of health and illness

Maternal Mortality at times are caused by illness that are socially produced. Women are homemakers and spend most of their time running up and down cooking, fetching water and in home keeping.In the African context pregnant women are not exempted from any of the above work. With all thesetheybecome sick resulting tomaternal deaths.

The social construction of Health and Illness. Maternal mortality in other communities is considered a normal occurrence of death whereby nothing could be done. Mostly in villages where most women are not educated and don’t know anything about their maternal health. With time, health agencies and governmentshave been able to penetrate to almost all rural areas resulting to maternal health awareness.

The Social organization of health care. Health policies and health funding have played a key role in India to ensure better maternal health care and to prevent maternal mortality rate. When health resources areproperly used especially in preventive approaches of maternal mortality rate, there will result a great success from them.Reduction of Maternal Mortality Rate in India Sample Essay

A success story

Interventions such as joining the public health care and private health care has resulted to great success in many countries like the ones in Europe. When the private and the public health care providers sit down and work on a common goal in ensuring a healthy nation, there would be a signification reduction in maternal health care.

Prediction

If the various unmet needs for ensuring births are well planned and there is proper spacing, we would have more than 15,000 maternal related deaths (Kalaivani, 2009). With the current strides that India is making and ifthe country gets more serious on itsmaternal Health Care it is evident that by 2030 it will be able to reach its goal of less than 70/100,000maternal mortality ratio.

Recommendations

There should be a right approach in ensuring that equity and social justice is applied to women. Special provisions can be made for women especially the pregnant one to ensure they have thebest health. Health facilities should be well equipped within the right and trained personnel in an effort to ensure the best health care. Maternal mortality ratecan never be improved in isolation. They have to be contextualized within the broader Primary Health Care. All Health Systems must be working properly from all points. Maternal mortality rate is causedby a complex of various factors put together.Reduction of Maternal Mortality Rate in India Sample Essay