India’s maternal mortality rate drops to 130, still far behind millennium development goals target

Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) – the number of deaths of a woman during pregnancy or within 42 days of pregnancy termination per 1,00,000 live births annually – in India has come down from 139 to 130 during the period 2014-16, according to Sample Registration System’s (SRS) recent bulletin in May 2018.

India’s MMR has declined from 2011-12 when it was 167. Union minister of health and family welfare Jagat Prakash Nadda said that India has surpassed the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDG) that aimed to bring down MMR to 139 by 2015.

“The latest Sample Registration System (SRS) figures reveal that India has gone beyond the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target of MMR of 139 by 2015. We reached 130,” the Union Minister was quoted saying .

However, the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) report states that the aim was to decline the rate to 109 by 2015. It states that “India is required to reduce MMR to 109 per 100,000 live births by 2015. Between 1990 and 2006, there has been some improvement in the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), which has declined to 167 per 100,000 live births in 2009. However, despite this, India’s progress on this goal has been slow and off track.”