Ignoring the perils of childbirth outside the formal healthcare facilities, including high rates of maternal and infant mortality, more than one-fifth of women in India are still opting for non-institutional birth. In other words, over 20 per cent women who do not give birth in institutions; it increases mortality risk of both mother and child.
According to the data provided by the National Family Health Survey, 78.9 per cent women opted for institutional birth in the country. Women opting for non-institutional childbirth are more prone to succumb to related complications while children born in such settings are more likely to remain outside the ambit of necessary immediate care, and hence, increasing the probability of pushing up infant mortality rate (IMR).
Home birth is an age-old practice, especially in rural areas. Many opt for childbirth without availing formal healthcare services out of adherence to tradition while many are forced to forgo due to poor or no access to healthcare facility or intermittence in availability of health workers.
While access to healthcare facilities is one of the aspects of women opting for non-institutional births in urban areas such as Delhi, cultural considerations play an important role in shunning formal medical healthcare. With schemes like Ayushman Bharat playing a pivotal role in enabling smoother access to health facilities, doctors are hopeful that institutional births may replace other modes of childbirth in near future.
