India on track meeting national maternal mortality target of 100 and Sustainable Development Goal of 70

According to a special bulletin released by the Registrar General of India, India’s maternal mortality ratio (MMR) – maternal deaths per 100,000 live births – dropped 10 points to 103 in 2017-19, bringing it closer to the global sustainable development goal of reducing MMR to 70.

India is “on the verge” of meeting the MMR target of 100 set out in the National Health Policy, according to the Union Health Ministry. According to the data, the MMR in 2014-16 was 130, then fell to 122 in 2015-17 and 113 in 2016-18. According to the data, Kerala (30), Maharashtra (38), Telangana (56), Tamil Nadu (58), Andhra Pradesh (58), Jharkhand (61), and Gujarat (70) have already met the sustainable development goal target. Karnataka (83) and Haryana (96), in addition to the seven states, have met India’s National Health Policy target.

Despite the fact that Haryana was one of the states that met India’s target, it was one of only four that saw an increase in MMR, according to the report, with the others being West Bengal, Uttarakhand, and Chhattisgarh.

Assam (205), Uttar Pradesh (167), Madhya Pradesh (163), Chhattisgarh (160), and Rajasthan have the highest MMR (141). However, Uttar Pradesh is the state that has made the most progress, with the MMR dropping by 30 points since the last round of the report. Rajasthan, with a 23-point drop, Bihar, with a 19-point drop, Punjab, with a 15-point drop, and Odisha, with a 14-point drop, were the next states to drop.

MMR has decreased by more than 15% in three states: Kerala, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh. Because “maternal deaths are a rare event, prohibitively large sample sizes are required to provide robust estimates,” the MMR is presented in a three-year format. The results were obtained by “following the practise of pooling the three years data to yield reliable estimates of maternal mortality in order to increase the SRS sample size,” according to the registrar general’s report.

According to the report, the highest proportion of maternal deaths occurred in women aged 20 to 24, who accounted for 32 percent of all deaths, followed by those aged 25 to 29, who accounted for 31 percent of all deaths. This could be due to the fact that this is the age group most likely to start a family.

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