Infant and maternal mortalities: Kamrup (M), Cachar on the wrong end of scene

GUWAHATI: Kamrup (M) and Cachar districts are hitting headlines for wrong reasons – topping infant mortality and maternal mortality lists in the State.

Kamrup (M) tops the list of infant mortality with 672 deaths from April 1-November 11, 2018, and Cachar followed it with 558 such deaths during the period. On the other hand, Cachar tops the list of maternal mortality with 89 deaths during the period followed by Kamrup (M) with 75 such deaths.

Infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of deaths per 1,000 live births of children under one year of age. The rate for a given region is the number of children dying under one year of age, divided by the number of live births during the year, multiplied by 1,000. The maternal mortality rate (MMR) is the annual number of female deaths per 100,000 live births from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management (excluding accidental or incidental causes).

According to statistics of National Health Mission (NHM), Assam, to date from April 1, 2018 as many as 3,521 deaths of infants have been registered in the State. Kamrup (M) registered the highest number of 672 deaths of infants during the period, closely followed by Cachar with 558 such deaths during the period. As many as 312 such deaths have been reported from Jorhat where as many as 20 infant deaths have been reported in 11 days from November 1, 2018. While 239 such deaths have been reported from Barpeta district during the period, 222 deaths have been reported from Karimganj district.

Cachar district has the highest number of 89 maternal deaths to date from April 1, 2018. It has been closely followed by Kamrup (M) with 75 such deaths, Sonitpur with 37 deaths, Nagaon with 34 deaths, Dhubri with 32 deaths etc.

According to NHM sources, one of the reasons behind such high rates of infant and maternal mortalities in the State is that 100 per cent hospital delivery is far from being a reality here. The sources also say that Kamrup (M) naturally registers more such deaths because of its location as the gateway to Northeast India. According to them, this is a fact that most of such cases from other areas of the State are referred to various hospitals in Guwahati leading to more such deaths in the metropolitan city.

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