{"id":1451,"date":"2015-12-08T22:45:39","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T17:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/?p=1451"},"modified":"2015-12-08T22:56:42","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T17:26:42","slug":"miscarriages-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/miscarriages-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Miscarriages in India…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I was trying to get hold of data on \u2018miscarriages\u2019 during pregnancies in India. You don\u2019t realise how prevalent they are until you experience one and talk to people about it. Then, you start noticing a number of others who\u2019ve had it and start hearing these vague numbers around it. I heard everything from 10% to 20% to \u2018very often\u2019 from doctors.\u00a0 To stretch it to the extreme, this <\/a>news report from the Times of India, quotes a doctor stating it\u2019s as high as 75%! Considering the vagueness of this data, the understanding of the exact causes of miscarriage is also varying. Again, I have heard things as vague as \u2018it happens, many things can go wrong\u2019 from doctors.<\/p>\n

The most reliable source, rather the biggest sample size study, I found, of information on this in India, is the National Family Health Survey (NFHS). Even, this survey is not done regularly. Only 3 have been done so far since the first survey in 1992-93. The 4th one is underway right now.<\/p>\n

The table below summarises the numbers for women (varies by survey \u2013 says ever married women for the \u201992 and \u201998 survey, just women for the \u201905 survey) who have ever had a miscarriage, abortion or non-live birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
NFHS<\/td>\n1992-93<\/td>\n1998-1999<\/td>\n2005-06<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sample Size: # of women interviewed (aged 15-49 years)<\/td>\n89,777<\/td>\n90,303<\/td>\n1,24,385<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
# of abortions per 100 pregnancies<\/td>\nInduced<\/td>\n1.3<\/td>\n1.7<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nSpontaneous<\/td>\n4.5<\/td>\n4.4<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
# of still births per 100 pregnancies<\/td>\n2.3<\/td>\n2.0<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
%age of pregnancies that ended in non live births<\/td>\n8.1%<\/td>\n8.1%<\/td>\n10.4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Data sourced from NFHS1992-93<\/a>, 1998-99<\/a> (can\u2019t be accessed directly, so took this report from DHS <\/a>website and this Elsevier report<\/a>), 2005-06. <\/a><\/p>\n

It is almost certain that the NFHS data on the total number of pregnancies ending in abortion, spontaneous or induced, is likely to be an underestimate. This is partly due to retrospective nature of the survey, sensitivity of the issue and due to the fact that a number of people don\u2019t realise they are pregnant (no easy access to pregnancy testing) and\/or that they had a spontaneous miscarriage.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the NFHS does not collect information on a number of relevant issues to understand issues on this matter better. For example, information on age at abortion, duration of pregnancy at the time of abortion, reason for abortion etc., are not captured.<\/p>\n

Considering the importance of understanding the underlying causes behind all these three issues \u2013 abortions both spontaneous and induced, and still births \u2013 I think it\u2019s high time the government institutes another mechanism of capturing data on miscarriages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I was trying to get hold of data on \u2018miscarriages\u2019 during pregnancies in India. You don\u2019t realise how prevalent they are until you experience one and talk to people about it. Then, you start noticing a number of others who\u2019ve had it and start hearing these vague numbers around it. I heard everything from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"book_review_cover_url":"","book_review_title":"","book_review_series":"","book_review_author":"","book_review_genre":"","book_review_isbn":"","book_review_publisher":"","book_review_release_date":"","book_review_format":"","book_review_pages":"","book_review_source":"","book_review_rating":"","book_review_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-30-day-challenge","category-rambling"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/photo-1547139559-c89c59d117611.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1451"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1477,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions\/1477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}