Deadly Pregnancies in India

Parth Sanyal / Reuters India is known for high-tech surrogate pregnancies. But for half a million Indian women each year, pregnancy kills.

The birth of a wanted child should be an occasion of hope and joy. But for more than half a million women each year in India, pregnancy ends tragically, in death. For their families, the prospect of joy gives way to despair and anguish.

Thousands more women suffer illness, injury, and pain related to their pregnancies. UNICEF estimates that for every maternal death, there are 20 to 30 cases of maternal morbidity, including as many as 100,000 cases each year of obstetric fistulae. This condition, which causes incontinence, is relatively easy to repair with surgery, but can lead to social exclusion for impoverished women without access to corrective health care. Other complications of pregnancy and childbirth include uterine prolapse, infertility, hemorrhage, convulsions, vaginal scarring, and sepsis.

Tens of thousands of Indian women and girls are dying during pregnancy, in childbirth, and in the weeks after giving birth, despite government programs guaranteeing free obstetric care.

India is rightly renowned for its advanced medical technologies, including, ironically, those for surrogate pregnancy. Yet in 2005, the last year for which estimates are available, the World Health Organization highlighted that India had one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. Human Rights Watch’s research found that tens of thousands of Indian women and girls are dying during pregnancy, in childbirth, and in the weeks after giving birth, despite government programs guaranteeing free obstetric care.

Uttar Pradesh state in northern India has the highest maternal mortality rates in the country because the government there has failed to identify and address shortcomings in health care delivery. But other Indian states, too, are struggling with these problems—and some have failed even to accurately count the number of pregnancy-related deaths, leading to a lack of critical information about where, how, and why women die. Until India can accurately quantify the problem, it cannot begin to prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths.

International and national efforts to reduce maternal mortality already span several decades. Most notably, in the 2000 Millennium Declaration, 189 countries pledged to achieve eight development goals by 2015, including a 75 percent reduction in maternal mortality. There is also global consensus about the medical interventions required to reduce the number of deaths, but it’s undoubtedly important to have a skilled birth attendant on hand, access to emergency obstetric care, and the ability to be referred to more specialized care as required.