Covid-19 may lead to a 31 per cent increase in Pakistan's infant and maternal mortality rates over the next 12 months if health services remained disrupted, said National Committee for Maternal and Newborn Health (NCMNH) vice-president Dr Azra Ahsan, quoting an article published in medical journal Lancet.
Addressing a press conference on Monday, jointly organised by NCMNH, Society for Obstetrics and Gynecology of Pakistan (SOGP) and Forum for Safe Motherhood, she stated that women and their newborn infants needed quality maternity care services with respect and dignity, even when disaster struck.
"Measures must be taken to ensure that women and newborns continue to receive vital life-saving interventions," she said, adding that it was during times of disaster that women coping with pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period, as well as newborns, were particularly vulnerable.
Meanwhile, SOGP president Dr Razia Korejo pointed out that Sindh had seen the highest toll of coronavirus cases as compared to the other provinces, adding that due to the pandemic-induced lockdown, mother and child healthcare services had suffered badly.
"This is likely to affect the gains made in the past decades in reducing Sindh's maternal and infant mortality rates," she said, calling for policy actions and steps for the continuity of mother, newborn, child health and family planning services even during an emergency.
Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and SOGP's Dr Haleema Yasmeen explained that resources and service providers were reallocated to deal with the pandemic, compromising maternal and newborn healthcare services both locally and globally.
"Issues such as the unavailability of emergency transfers to facilities, the increasing reliance on preponement through medically unnecessary C-sections, inductions and augmentation of labour have further aggravated the situation," she added.
Concluding the talk, Dr Ahsan said that the Sindh government had taken numerous initiatives, including the Reproductive Health Act recently passed by the provincial assembly, where the family planning rights of women were safeguarded.
Further, she stressed the need for a concerted campaign on Respectful Maternity Care (RMC) in the country to target specific gaps in the policies and programmes of maternity services, adding that all stakeholders in the province were committed to improving the access, availability and quality of maternal and childcare services in remote, less developed regions.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 18th, 2020.
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