Shillong, Nov 9: State Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Monday expressed concern over continued maternal and infant mortality.
Replying to a short duration discussion initiated by Congress legislator from Mawsynram, H.M. Shangpliang, Sangma informed the House that the state recorded over 13,000 infant deaths in the age group of 0-12 months and around 1000 maternal deaths over the last five years.
Sangma, informed the House that the number of maternal deaths in the year 2015 was 211 and in 2016 it was 198, while the number was 197 in 2017 and 164 in 2018, adding that in 2019, the number was 174 and so far this year, the state has registered 61 deaths of mothers during child birth.
On infant deaths in the age group of 0-12 months, he informed that in 2015, the number was 2530, 2427 in 2016, 2512 in 2017, 2074 in 2018, 2574 in 2019 and 889 so far this year.
“Over 10 percent of the deliveries in the State are due to teenage pregnancies and also informed that over 30 percent are deliveries after the third delivery by mothers below the age of 30 years and also expressed concern over the lack of spacing between pregnancies,†Sangma informed the Assembly.
The Chief Minister informed the assembly that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved Rs 350 crore for investment in health infrastructure in the state and expressed optimism that with this there would be considerable improvement in the functioning of the community health centres (CHCs) and public health centres (PHCs) and sub-centres across the state
The Chief Minister also outlined the features about Meghalaya’s Outcome Oriented Transformation in Health, Nutrition, Education and Rural Development (MOTHER) programme and said that through the use of technology, the government was mapping pregnant women, high risk mothers across the state with specific details about their doctors, dates of expectation and other information.
