What Is Institutional Delivery?
It has been a decade-and-a-half since India started incentivising institutional deliveries to ensure safe childbirths. But health indicators for mothers and infants have not improved as much as the number of such deliveries.
- Institutional Delivery means giving birth to a child in a medical institution under the overall supervision of trained and competent health personnel.
- It also signifies an availability of amenities to handle the situation and save the life of the mother and child.
- The share of India’s institutional deliveries increased to 88.6% in 2019-2021 (National Family Health Survey 5 (NFHS-5) from 40.8 % in 2005-06 (NFHS 3).
- The nine targeted states Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Assam recorded a similar uptick during the period, ranging from 50-64 % points.
- Madhya Pradesh led the way with a 64.5 % point growth.
- These states account for nearly half of India’s population, over 60% of maternal deaths, 70% of infant deaths and 12% of global maternal deaths.
- Maternal mortality ratio (MMR), infant mortality rate and neonatal mortality rate (NMR), have not improved at the same pace as institutional births.
- The nine focus states continue to have the highest MMR, a majority of which are well beyond India’s national average of 103.
- Healthcare delivery and service utilisation are very different in two groups of India’s states those performing better than the national average and those lagging behind.
- The country as a whole may be able to meet the United Nations-mandated Sustainable Development Goal of reducing MMR to 70 by 2030, but the lagging states will continue to perform poorly unless given an impetus.
