Sindh fares worse than K-P in key health category

Around 30 per cent marriages in the country are child marriages, says expert.

KARACHI: Healthcare experts attending a meeting organised by the Marie Stopes Society (MSS) said that Sindh fares worse than Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when it comes to maternal mortality rates. Dr Haris Ahmed from Pathfinder International said that according to the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2006-07, the maternal mortality rate in Sindh is 314 deaths per 100,000 live births, followed by K-P with 275 deaths. Balochistan leads the country, with a maternal mortality rate of 785 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Rehan Khan from Rutgers World Population Foundation touched upon the sensitive issue of early marriages that take place in the country.

He said that young mothers, those between 15 or 16 years of age, are twice as likely to die during childbirth, when compared to elder women. He added that 30 per cent of all Pakistani marriages can be classified as “child marriages”. A total of 14 million couples in the country intend to plan out their families, yet one in every four pregnancies are unintended. Nearly six per cent of mothers die due to unsafe abortions.

The healthcare experts, most of whom hailed from K-P, then focused on ways to raise the profile of reproductive health reporting, and promote spacing of pregnancies to decrease maternal mortality at the district level. Journalists from more than 10 K-P districts, including Swat and Kohat, also attended the event.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 26^th, 2012.