Mumbai: Births dropped by nearly 20 per cent as the pandemic raged in Mumbai, a recent Right To Information (RTI) report accessed by a social activist in the city has revealed. The activist claims that financial strain, the rise in home deliveries and the looming threat of infection may have discouraged couples from starting a new family.
According to the data revealed through an RTI filed by activist Chetan Kothari on total deliveries, normal and by Caesarean sections in 2020, in all, 1,20,188 babies were born, as compared to 2019 when 1,48,898 deliveries had taken place, an almost 20 per cent drop because of the lockdown. Similarly, normal deliveries also dropped by 23 per cent, followed by Caesarean sections, which dropped by 14.64 per cent last year, compared to 2019.
Gynaecologists say there were many factors that played a crucial role in the drop in deliveries last year, but that does not mean pregnancy rates have come down. “By March, thousands of women were pregnant. Their deliveries were scheduled over the next nine months, till November. The drop in hospital deliveries therefore doesn’t indicate a fall in the pregnancy rate during the pandemic,” said a doctor from the gynaecology department of the civic-run hospital.
Medical experts and doctors point towards two major reasons behind the drop in the registration of institutional deliveries in these nine months— a rise in home births and mass migration during the lockdown when thousands of people lost their jobs.
“During the Covid-19 pandemic, sexual and reproductive health and rights took a backseat. Overnight, as a precautionary measure, tertiary care hospitals were converted into dedicated Covid care centres. During an emergency, when pregnant women were rushed to the hospital for delivery, they were referred to another hospital. In the initial stages of the pandemic, there was too much confusion among the public,” said senior doctor from the BYL Nair hospital.
Dr Gayatri Deshpande, Senior Consultant, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Nanavati Max Super Speciality Hospital, said the childbirths in 2020 were planned well before the pandemic and so it seems unlikely that Covid could have discouraged couples from starting families. The mass exodus of migrants to their hometowns in 2020 may have caused the decrease in childbirths across city hospitals.
“On the contrary, we at Nanavati Max Super Speciality Hospital didn’t observe any significant decrease in childbirths during the said period. Several patients who had initially chosen to deliver their children at smaller nursing homes got themselves re-registered with Nanavati Max and other quarternary care medical institutes of the city, considering the quality standard of care. Due to holistic mother and child care policies and stringent implementation of safe labour room protocols, our patients underwent stress-free childbirths at the hospital,” she said.
