LUCKNOW: In Uttar Pradesh, the 'safe motherhood' week will start from today to provide all necessary medical aid and assistance to the pregnant women and to ensure safe delivery in the entire state.
During the campaign being run under National Health Mission till 21st October, the 'HRPs' or high risk pregnancies will be identified and will be taken special care of, said principal secretary health and family welfare Arun Kumar Sinha in Lucknow on Thursday.
He said that nearly 50% of the expecting mothers are anaemic in the state which is the single largest reason for Mother Mortality.
The main aim of the 'Safe Motherhood Week' is to bring down the 'Mother Mortality Rate' 'MMR' and 'Infant Mortality Rate' or 'IMR', he said.
At present, the MMR in the state is 258 per lakh delveries which have been targeted to be brought down to 200 till the end of this year as it is still above the national average of 167, Sinha said.
It is the second phase of the 'Safe Motherhood Week' as in the first phase conducted in January this year, a total of nearly eighteen lakh pregnant women were identified with a number of one lakh fourteen thousand HRPs.
This time around sixty lakh pregnant women are expected to be taken into ambit of Safe Motherhood week, of which nearly eight percent are estimated to be High Risk Pregnancies, Sinha said
In order to ensure total transparency, the financial benefits under Janani Suraksha Yojna will be given to the pregnant women for whom their Adhar linked bank account mapping has been made mandatory.
Besides, the Asha and Anganwadi workers, who help and ensure safe deliveries in hospitals, will also be additionally rewarded.
Under NHM, it has also been decided that in place of routine 100 iron folic tablets, now 180 such tablets will be given to expecting mothers to fight anaemia which is most rampant in most parts of Uttar Pradesh.
To fight calcium deficiency, a total of 720 calcium tablets will be provided to the pregnant women with 360 each before and after the delivery.
A special counselling and planning camp will be organised on 24 and 25 October for the women identified with HRP so that proper care can be planned for their safe delivery.