We at Sankalp are used to state one fact while motivating donors. The fact is “Every year more than 5,00,000 women die during childbirth.” Well, this is no longer a fact! According to the latest report by UN, the maternal mortality rate (MMR) has decreased significantly over the last decade. The figure for MMR has reached about 2,87,000 deaths per year, a decline of more than 47%.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "A maternal death is defined as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes." The major cause of these deaths is PPH or Postpartum Haemorrhage which is the excessive loss of blood during delivery.
India has significantly reduced the MMR from 437 deaths per one lakh births in 1999 to 212 now. We can feel good about it, but the fact is, the current rate still equates to 57000 maternal deaths every year in the country! A woman dies every 10 mins in India during or after delivery due to lack of blood. Also, we are far from achieving the UN’s Millenniums Development Goals’ target of 109 deaths per one lakh births by 2015. Thus, we need to do a lot in this area. We need to provide better infrastructure in health and better healthcare access to rural women. We need to ensure that every birth takes place in specialized hospitals under the supervision of trained doctor and nurses. And most important of all, we need to improve voluntary blood donation.
Most of these lives can be saved by timely arrangement of blood. PPH is not at all fatal. In most of the developed nations, it seldom results in death. But in India, the blood is not available on shelf. Typically after PPH, a woman requires massive blood transfusions. And by the time the relatives are able to arrange for blood, its late. The only way to prevent PPH from taking lives is voluntary blood donation. If every blood bank has sufficient voluntarily donated blood, we can significantly decrease the MMR in our country.
It is our responsibility to save our mothers from dying. A healthy mother is the foundation to a healthy family and healthy society. If we want to see our country truly develop, we need to focus on these social issues. Because number of billionaires is not a parameter for development, but where we stand on Millennium Development Goals is. A day will come when we would be at par with developed nations on HDI (Human Development Index). But, it requires our efforts and willpower. And it will start with voluntary blood donation.