2019 – Posted in: Daily News – Tags: infant mortality rate, mother mortality rate

INDIA’S INFANT MORTALITY RATE (IMR)

For: Preliminary & Mains

Topic covers: IMR progress report

India’s infant mortality rate (IMR) has fallen from 42 in 2012 to 33 in 2017.

India’s IMR is even today worse than those of South Asian neighbours Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, the slowdown is worrying.

The number of babies below one year dying out of every 1,000 born alive — has been falling steadily for most regions of the world.
The global average IMR is 29 and that for low and middle income countries, the category that India belongs to, is 34.
The IMR for the European region is 8, the same as SriLanks.
India has also been overtaken by Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal with IMRs of 28, 29 and 30 respectively.
The only countries doing worse than India were Pakistan and Myanmar which had IMRs of 66 and 43 respectively.

The rural IMR reduced marginally from the previous year.
Urban IMR remained the same for India as a whole.
In Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Uttarakhand, there was a marginal increase in IMR in urban areas from 2016 with the highest increase in urban Gujarat and Karnataka from 19 to 22 in both states.
In the case of urban Gujarat, the IMR for females went up from 19 to 23, higher than the increase for males.
Madhya Pradesh and Assam had the worst IMR of 47 and 44 respectively.
Kerala and Tamil Nadu recorded the lowest IMR of 10 and 16 repectively.
The lower IMR was recorded in Nagaland and Goa — 7 and 9 respectively.
Odisha and Uttar Pradesh showed the biggest improvement with IMR falling for both from 53 to 41 between 2012 and 2017.
Among all states, Jammu and Kashmir showed the biggest improvement with its IMR dropping from 39 to 23.

India is promoting simple fixes to improve mother and child health. These include:

Exclusive breastfeeding.
Skin-to-skin contact between the parent and the baby.
Fully immunising the mother and child
Providing nutrition and primary healthcare to prevent pregnancy-related complications, premature births, malnutrition and diseases
Promoting basic hygiene and sanitation.
Pulse Polio Programme
Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) strategy

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