Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has rolled out Centchroman, a non-hormonal, non-steroidal contraceptive pill for women, which can be taken after normal or caesarean section delivery and during breastfeeding.
BMC’s executive health officer Dr. Padmaja Keskar said the free-of-cost pill will be available in the government hospitals under market name Chhaya. “We have trained our doctors, mainly those in maternity hospitals, to spread awareness. This pill is best for spacing between pregnancies.”
The medication, developed by the Central Drug Research Institute in 1991, was included in the family planning programme in 2016. While older studies have showed high failure rates, newer ones came out with better results.
At present, among the choices available for couples are condoms, oral pills, injectable contraception, intrauterine contraceptive device, and sterilisation procedures like vasectomy and tubectomy.
Oral pills are known to be most effective, but their usage across the country is merely 4%, according to a study by the Indian Institute of Population Sciences. Around 34% women opt for tubectomy, a surgical procedure to prevent eggs reaching the uterus. Nearly 6% couples use condoms. Vasectomy, the simplest suture-less procedure of male sterilisation, is opted by merely 1%.
“The idea is to offer a variety of choices to women. While a certain oral pill may suit one, it may not suit the other,” said Dr. Keskar.
Dr. Ashok Anand, head of gynaecology, JJ Hospital, said Centchroman is efficacious and has been available in the private sector for the last many years. “Its inclusion in the public sector will definitely help in its wider reach.”
