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Maternal and Infant Mortality
Beyond demographic consequences, infant and maternal mortality, represent a loss of human potential and work capacity, sorely exacerbating the economic state of the poverty-stricken nation.
Prostitution, compounded by a widow’s vagrancy, passivity, and physical weakness, increases her vulnerability to sexual harassment, often impregnating the widow. The squalid conditions of the streets increase susceptibility to communicable diseases, namely tuberculosis, malaria, and dengue. Often, the severity of such diseases heightens the probability of developing pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) that potential precipitate maternal mortality through stroke, temporary kidney failure, or birth complications.
The shortage of medical facilities coupled with her impecunious state precludes receiving proper medicine or surgery, directly harming both the offspring and the widow, herself. Along with contracting lethal diseases, pregnant widows often
endure illegal, induced abortions. The severe suffering of induced abortions—performed in unsanitary conditions, inflamed by the feeble
condition of the widow— directly proceeds her death.
Extreme impoverishment in Northern States (Rajasthan and Bihar) translates into severe rates of maternal (and infant) mortality.
Despite maternal mortality, some widows
survive to bear a child, often subject to birth
defects or infant mortality. Her deteriorating nutritional state and decreasing food intake transcend into severe maternal malnutrition: a low nutrient that impedes fetus development and specifically organ growth. With an impoverished food supply, the possibility for a caloric increase (imperative during pregnancy) fades, further hindering the offspring.
Poor maternal health, specifically maternal
malnutrition, directly attributes to low-birth-weight, childhood stunting, undernutrition, neural tube defects, malnutrition, and brain damage. Such growth hindrances during infancy associate with poorer emotional development and reduced cognitive capabilities, inviting maladies
such as coronary heart disease and type-two diabetes into adulthood.
Approximately 44,000 women die due to preventable pregnancy-related causes, annually.
-Unicef India
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