CMO directs Health department to frame guidelines for safe child births

The Chief Minister’s office (CMO) has intervened to issue a directive to the Health department to frame the necessary guidelines so as to ensure that all child births in the State, including child births among the families of the huge population of migrant labourers here, are conducted safely in hospitals.

The Chief Minister’s office sought to give this directive following a written communication and appeal by K. Prathibha, medical officer at Tanur Community Health Centre in Malappuram, who pointed out that because of the lack of awareness, many migrant families were continuing to opt for home births, risking the lives of both the mothers and newborns.

Dr. Prathibha, in her letter to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, had pointed out the incident that took place recently at Kizhakkambalam in Ernakulam district, wherein the wife of a migrant worker from Assam had given birth to twin babies at home. However, both the newborns could not be saved while the mother had to be rushed to the hospital in a serious condition.

Similar incident

A similar incident had happened a couple of months ago in Thrissur, where another migrant women had to be hospitalised on an emergency basis following childbirth at home.

This is not the first time that Dr. Prathibha is intervening in the interest of safe motherhood. She had moved the Kerala High Court last year demanding that guidelines and rules be framed by the State to regulate home births.

“We need to have some guidelines in place so that the safety of all women who give birth in Kerala, including migrant workers, is ensured. We have at present no idea how many migrant families are there in the State or how many of the women require our antenatal services. Many of these migrant families might be used to having the traditional “dhais” conduct child births at home in their native place and would be unaware of the range of free reproductive health services that we offer to all women accessing care in our health system,” Dr. Prathibha told The Hindu.

Vulnerable populations

She pointed out that despite the care given by the State to ensure near-100% institutional deliveries and continuous antenatal care and support to ensure safe motherhood, vulnerable populations like the migrant workers continued to remain on the fringe.

“Many migrant workers are now bringing their families with them to Kerala. We need to have a system in place so that local self governments are required to be informed about the migrant families residing in their locality. Once the health workers are involved, they will take care of the regular follow up of these migrant families, including the women and children,” Dr. Prathibha said.