The Centre has introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha to ban commercial surrogacy – part of an ongoing effort to crack down on the practise, with the goal of stopping women being exploited. The bill, if passed, would severely restrict opportunities for surrogacy. Couples, of women aged between 23 and fifty and men aged […]
Pregnancy
In major error, millions of pregnant women’s data leaked online
In a major technical error, more than 12.5 million medical records belonging to pregnant women were left exposed and available for public consumption. Failure to secure a database containing the records – some of which dated back to 2014 – saw sensitive information left publically accessible. It was not until a researcher discovered the error […]
What drives India’s unnecessary C-section crisis?
A fifty percent increase in caesarean sections in the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh has caused alarm and prompted state health minister Tulsiram Silawat to commission an investigation. The reported rise was described by the minister as ‘objectionable’. According to World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, c-sections should not account for more than fifteen percent of […]
Carbetocin: A new weapon in the fight against maternal mortality?
India is a safer country to be a mother than it was twenty years ago. Could a new version of the drug carbetocin make it even safer? In 1990, 556 Indian mothers lost their lives for every one lakh (100,000) live births. 2016 saw this figure drop by 77 percent to 130 deaths for every […]
Gurugram unveils plans for free pregnancy camps
Free medical camps, set up to aid pregnant women, may help reduce maternal mortality in Haryana. The city of Gurugram has unveiled plans for a new a public-private partnership to tackle health issues related to pregnancy. India has long shown a terrible track record in terms of maternal deaths, though over recent years this high […]