Gurgaon: Haryana govt is taking a slew of measures to bring maternal mortality ratio (MMR) below 85 deaths per lakh live births by 2026-27. The health department is moving towards a more centralised monitoring system.The state govt is putting every registered pregnant woman through at least one comprehensive medical check-up and mandating specialist follow-up for those identified as high-risk.Besides, it will set up a control centre to track high-risk pregnancies. The control centre is being planned to track maternal health cases and follow-up, with the aim of giving health authorities closer oversight of high-risk pregnancies and other cases requiring intervention.Additional chief secretary (health) Sumita Mishra said, “We have proposed a central control centre, which will monitor all units where pregnant women will be registered, and the follow-up in high-risk pregnancies.”National Health Mission (NHM) Haryana director Dr Virender Yadav told TOI, “The focus is on identifying complications early and ensuring women classified as high-risk remain under medical supervision. Every registered pregnant woman is to be examined by a medical officer, preferably a gynaecologist, while identified high-risk cases will undergo mandatory follow-up and specialist management.”Haryana’s MMR remained stagnant for years. MMR was 89 per lakh live births in 2019-21 and in 2020-22, and remained unchanged at 89 in the latest 2021-23 SRS estimates. The national MMR stood at 88 in 2021-23. The state govt is seeking to strengthen district-level monitoring to this end.The state has also deployed gynaecologists, CeMOC- and BeMOC-trained medical officers, woman medical officers and other trained doctors according to district rosters, so that pregnant women can access antenatal care at their local govt health facilities rather than having to travel elsewhere.The new approach puts greater emphasis on systematically identifying individual high-risk pregnancies and ensuring they remain under follow-up, rather than relying only on broad maternal health outreach. This is also consistent with the wider national strategy of strengthening timely interventions for high-risk pregnancies to reduce maternal mortality.Districts have been given daily targets for antenatal care and are sharing progress through a dedicated monitoring system. ASHA workers, ANMs and other frontline health workers have been tasked with mobilising registered pregnant women for scheduled check-ups.The department is also providing essential laboratory investigations, medicines and ultrasound services, wherever required, free of cost at designated govt health facilities. Women are being counselled on nutrition, birth preparedness and adherence to iron-folic acid and calcium supplementation.The exercise extends beyond pregnancy. Lactating mothers, particularly those who had high-risk pregnancies, are being followed up by doctors or gynaecologists, while complications detected during home visits are being referred to govt facilities.As part of the current Surakshit Janani Maah exercise, 64,530 pregnant women and 6,473 lactating mothers were examined till Aug 11, according to the health department.The current campaign follows the health department’s earlier “No Maternal Death Pakhwada”, during which it said around 75 maternal deaths were averted through the efforts of health teams.
