Lucknow. Data from the Family Welfare Department of Uttar Pradesh shows that about 62 percent of women with a difference of less than three years are born to anemia. Dr. Badri Vishal, director of the department, said this here on Thursday. Dr. Vishal said in a workshop organized in collaboration with Center for Advocacy and Research (Seafour) to strengthen the concept of difference between children and the importance of delay in pregnancy among young couples to reduce maternal and child mortality It is very important that the birth of two children should be kept at least three years apart. By not doing so, where women reach a high-risk pregnancy, there is every possibility of children being malnourished.
He said that it has been observed in most of the cases of the state that about 62 percent of women who have less than three years of birth fall into anemia. The director said that similarly, infant mortality (IMR) in babies born at intervals of less than two years is 91 per thousand live births, which is much more than the overall IMR 64 per thousand live births. The present Joint Director Family Welfare, Dr. Virendra Singh said that the total adolescent population of Uttar Pradesh is about 4.89 crore. Data from NFHS-4 (2015-16) show that about 3.8 per cent of adolescent girls surveyed had become pregnant or had become mothers at the age of 15 to 19 years.
Dr. Virendra Singh said that according to the data of the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), about 57 percent of the women and the same number of men believe that an ideal family should have two or fewer children. 145 districts have been identified in the category of high fertility. These seven states include Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Assam and 57 of these 145 high-fertility districts are from Uttar Pradesh, with a total fertility rate of three or more. These 145 districts cover 28 percent of the total population of the country. These districts account for 30 percent of maternal deaths and 50 percent of infant deaths.