Institutional child deliveries in country has increased: JP Nadda

New Delhi: The institutional child deliveries in the country has significantly increased and

various steps have been taken under National Health Mission (NHM) to improve it, the government today said.

"The institutional deliveries in the country have increased from 38.7 per cent as per the National Family Health

Survey (NFHS-III) in 2005-06 to 46.9 per cent as per District Level Household Survey (DLHS-III) in 2007-08.

"As per the Coverage Evaluation Survey (CES 2009) conducted by the UNICEF, the institutional delivery is 72.9

per cent," Union Health Minister J P Nadda told Lok Sabha.

He said that the institutional delivery rates in rural and urban areas were 28.9 per cent and 67.5 per cent

respectively as per NFHS-III in 2005-06 which rose to 37.8 per cent and 70.4 per cent as per DLHS-III in 2007-08.

Under CES 2009, the rural and urban institutional delivery was 68 per cent and 85.6 per cent respectively, Nadda

said. He said that Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) plays an important role in improving access to institutional deliveries by motivating the pregnant mother and her family for continued contact with the health system.

Elaborating about the measures taken under NHM, Nadda said that capacity building of health care providers in basic

and comprehensive obstetric care has been done while operationalization of sub-centres, Primary Health Centres,

Community Health Centres and District Hospitals for providing 24x7 basic and comprehensive obstetric care services have also been done.

He said that name based tracking of pregnant women to ensure antenatal, intranatal and postnatal care is being done

while mother and child protection card in collaboration with the Women and Child Development Ministry to monitor service delivery for mothers and children is also being undertaken.