The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the Indian Medical Association (IMA) launched here on Friday a State-wide drive to bring down infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality rate (MMR) by stressing safe food and hygiene.
“Compared with the national-level IMR of 40 per 1,000 live births, Kerala is low at 12 per 1,000 live births. The aim is to reduce it to single digit, to match international standards,” UNICEF’s Chief of Field Office (Kerala and Tamil Nadu) Job Zachariah told presspersons.
The MMR in Kerala is 60 as against the national rate of 167. The latest drive aims at reducing it by advocating safe delivery, and also good hygiene and healthy diet that will have a bearing on the child’s health.
IMA State president A.V. Jayakrishnan said 35,000 doctors (gynaecologists and paediatricians) would be part of this drive. Doctors trained by IMA and UNICEF teams would write the safe practices on the prescription, in addition to diet, drugs and vitamin supplements. Specific emphasis would be on mother’s milk, to provide nutrition to and build immunity in the child.
IMA State secretary Samuel Koshy said the drive would also train hospital staff, especially the paramedics, in sensitising mothers on safe practices and breastfeeding.
Personal hygiene also would get very high priority in the prescriptions. “Hand washing is the most basic and highly significant safe practice,” said Dr. Jayakrishnan. By washing the hands before feeding the child, transmission of any infection-causing pathogen could be prevented.
Asked whether non-institutional deliveries (done at home with midwives) and hospital-acquired infection continued to contribute to IMR and MMR, Dr. Jayakrishnan said almost all deliveries were only in hospitals and infection had been brought down, especially with the National Board for Accreditation of Hospitals and Healthcare Institutions insisting on it as a major criterion for accreditation. Dr. Jayakrishnan said every IMA branch would adopt 10 schools to provide awareness to teachers on the drive’s focus areas, and also to tell students of the ill-effects of junk food.
