Still Births in India

New Delhi: Nearly one-fourth of all stillborn babies worldwide are from India, the highest for any nation, and more than half of them could be saved by better maternal and obstetric care.
A study to be published in The Lancet medical journal has found that an average of 2.6 million stillbirths occurred every year between 1995 and 2009, 23.2% of which were from India. This means an average of 1,680 babies were born dead every day in the country in that time.
This paints a dismal picture in the backdrop of emerging Census 2011 data, which points to a bias against girl children. The sex of stillborn babies was not specified in the peer-reviewed study, but it seems that deficient prenatal care is further queering the pitch for India’s women.
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has previously pointed to the country’s exceptionally high infant and maternal mortality rate, the Lancet study, according to the writers, is the first to track regional trends over a long period.
“Unfortunately, still births don’t count in data-collating efforts for the millennium development goals. So this is a kind of first attempt at trying to capture a true picture of the problem,” said Joy E. Lawn, lead author of the research series. “Over time, we expect better numbers and data based on standard numbers to come out.”