HYDERABAD, June 16: About 30,000 women die every year because of pregnancy complications with another 300,000 enduring lifelong disability, said gynaeacologist Dr Hameda Jagrani.

In an interview on Monday she urged the medical community and governmental and non-governmental organisations to prepare a strategy for bringing down mortality rate among pregnant women.

She said unawareness in adopting safety measures during pregnancy causes untimely death or disability in women, while the health of newborn too comes under peril.

According to statistics about 25 per cent newborns fall in the category of low birth weight and 10 per cent never reach up to their first birthday and called on the people to make rapid developments in health, education, and science for creating awareness, particularly among females as they are the worst sufferers.

Dr Hameeda Jagrani said malnutrition is the basic health problem and because of a marked difference between the status of men and women in our society, more girls die between the ages of one to four than boys. The female mortality rate is higher by 12 per cent than males, she added.

Girls and infants she said, most often die because of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, diarrhea, pneumonia and tetanus which can be easily prevented and treated. The high prevalence of communicable diseases and malnutrition is not only related to poor living conditions, but also to lower social status of the female lot, she said and added: “Social stigma and gender norms are responsible for recurrent reproductive tract infection among 50 per cent of women.”

Dr Jagrani emphasized on efforts to control mortality rate during pregnancy as lack of knowledge and poverty help in hiking the graph. The health of women needs to be resolved at the earliest, she said and added medical experts must jointly struggle for a better future for women.

She said educating girls, particularly in rural areas will help create healthy society along with taking the country to the heights of progress and prosperity and underlined the need of controlling population.

In some communities about 80 to 90 per cent of pregnant women are anemic while on national level it may be 50 per cent because low intake of iron and poor absorption often leading to anemia, she said adding the reproductive health depends on physical, mental and social well-being and not merely due to disease or infirmity.—APP