Maternal mortality has been an issue of concern in India for many years, and one of the country’s endless endeavours has been to improve maternal health and bring down the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR). MMR is the number of maternal deaths during a given time period per 100,000 live births during the same time period.
Maternal mortality in a region is a measure of the reproductive health of women in the area. Many women in reproductive age-span die due to complications during and following pregnancy and childbirth or abortion.
Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in India was exceptionally high in 1990 with 556 women dying during child birth per hundred thousand live births. Approximately, 1.38 lakh women were dying every year on account of complications related to pregnancy and child birth. The global MMR at the time was much lower at 385.
The National Health Policy (NHP) 2017 lay down the target to bring the MMR in India below 100/lakh live births by 2020. Owing to ceaseless efforts by the Government, India has successfully achieved the major milestone of bringing down its MMR to 97/lakh live births in 2018-20, well in time.
The targeted interventions by the Government of India with the objective of addressing all aspects of maternal care have translated into a consistent decline in MMR over the last eight years.
MMR in the country declined from 130 per lakh live births in 2014-16 to 122 in 2015-17, and further dropped by 9 points to 113 in 2016-18. By 2017-19, India’s MMR was already down to 103, against a global MMR of 211 (2017).
Target 3.1 in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by the United Nations in 2015 is to reduce the global MMR to less than 70/lakh live births by 2030. India is steadily advancing on the track to achieve this goal ahead of time with its policies for women’s health and wellbeing.
The steps taken by the Central Government have facilitated outstanding progress by a number of states, eight of which have already achieved the SDG target. These include Kerala (19), Maharashtra (33), Telangana (43) Andhra Pradesh (45), Tamil Nadu (54), Jharkhand (56), Gujarat (57), and Karnataka (69).
