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  • Title: Statistics.
    Journal: Health Millions; 1993 Feb; 1(1):29-31. PubMed ID: 12286355.
    Abstract:
    In 1984, 99% of abortions conducted in Bombay, India, were of female fetuses. In 1986-87, 30,000-50,000 female fetuses were aborted in India. In 1987-88, 7 Delhi clinics conducted 13,000 sex determination tests. Thus, discrimination against females begins before birth in India. Some states (Maharashtra, Goa, and Gujarat) have drafted legislation to prevent the use of prenatal diagnostic tests (e.g., ultrasonography) for sex determination purposes. Families make decisions about an infant's nutrition based on the infant's sex so it is not surprising to see a higher incidence of morbidity among girls than boys (e.g., for respiratory infections in 1985, 55.5% vs. 27.3%). Consequently, they are more likely to die than boys. Even though vasectomy is simpler and safer than tubectomy, the government promotes female sterilizations. The percentage of all sexual sterilizations being tubectomy has increased steadily from 84% to 94% (1986-90). Family planning programs focus on female contraceptive methods, despite the higher incidence of adverse health effects from female methods (e.g., IUD causes pain and heavy bleeding). Some women advocates believe the effects to be so great that India should ban contraceptives and injectable contraceptives. The maternal mortality rate is quite high (460/100,000 live births), equaling a lifetime risk of 1:18 of a pregnancy-related death. 70% of these maternal deaths are preventable. Leading causes of maternal deaths in India are anemia, hemorrhage, eclampsia, sepsis, and abortion. Most pregnant women do not receive prenatal care. Untrained personnel attend about 70% of deliveries in rural areas and 29% in urban areas. Appropriate health services and other interventions would prevent the higher age specific death rates for females between 0 and 35 years old. Even though the government does provide maternal and child health services, it needs to stop decreasing resource allocate for health and start increasing it.
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