Women community group brings down neonatal mortality rate drastically

The illiterate and semi-illiterate women--who worked under the guidance of Ekjut, an organization working towards reducing neonatal deaths in Jharkhand and Orissa--have managed to cut down the neonatal mortality rate--death of fetus during pregnancy or delivery--by a whopping 45 percent in just three years.

The mortality rate in Jharkhand and Orissa, two of the poorest states in Eastern India, has been reduced from 62 to 32 (per 1000 live births), claimed statistical reports.

Adding to the laurels achieved by the women, the postnatal depression rate has also declined by approximately 57 percent during the years 2005-2008.

The Institute of Child Health (ICH), University College of London, too, was associated with the project throughout.

Making women aware of safe practices
Making women in the districts aware of safety practices during pregnancy like hygiene, raising emergency funds, and producing their own birth kits was the main objective of the group.

While doing this, the women had to be vigilant not to enter into technical complexities or cost-intensive ideas due to the fact that these ideas were sure to fail as they were dealing with rural women.

"By just making the women aware of safe practices like use of safe delivery kit and maintaining hygienic environment we have managed to bring a sea change in mindset of rural people," said Gagrai, who had just passed class VIII when she started advocating safe practices for safe motherhood.

Making the women think about the cause-effect relation of illness and death in pregnancy was the main idea that helped the group achieve its goal.

Though the women faced various obstacles in their path, their self motivation made them strive hard without worrying about failures.

Reason behind the success of community groups like these
Professor Anthony Costello from the Institute of Child Health, UCL (University College London) is of the view that in developing countries like India women groups like these can achieve substantial success in improving neonatal health, far more than a trained health worker.

Explains Dr Audrey Prost from UCL, "The groups empower the women to take preventive measures and to deal with problems more effectively when they arise. If you've been to a group and a problem arises, you've got a ready-made network that you can go to for help and support."