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India Registers A Steep Decline In MMR

  • 18 Jul 2020

  • The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in India has declined to 113 in 2016-18 from 122 in 2015-17 and 130 in 2014-2016, according to the special bulletin on Maternal Mortality in India 2016-18, released by the Office of the Registrar General’s Sample Registration System (SRS).
  • At 215, Assam has the highest MMR in the country.Kerala tops the ranking with the lowest MMR — 43 per one lakh live births. Maharashtra is placed second with a ratio of 46 per one lakh live births.
  • The MMR of various States according to the bulletin includes Assam (215), Bihar (149), Madhya Pradesh (173), Chhattisgarh (159), Odisha (150), Rajasthan (164), Uttar Pradesh (197) and Uttarakhand (99). The southern States registered a lower MMR — Andhra Pradesh (65), Telangana (63), Karnataka (92), Kerala (43) and Tamil Nadu (60).

Maternal Mortality

  • Maternal mortality in a region is a measure of reproductive health of women in the area. Many women in reproductive age-span die due to complications during and following pregnancy and childbirth or abortion.
  • As per World Health Organization, “Maternal death is 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”.
  • One of the key indicators of maternal mortality is the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) which is defined as the number of maternal deaths during a given time period per 100,000 live births during the same time period.
  • The target 3.1 of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by United Nations aims at reducing the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births.