The Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI) has now taken up the task of ensuring safe motherhood in partnership with AstraZeneca, the global drug major in the country with a special focus on maternal health.

A programme under the theme 'Optimizing Labour and Delivery for Safe Motherhood' commenced through a public awareness campaign titled 'Anmol Anchal'. Over 60 safe motherhood workshops have been conducted for doctors, including those in government service across the country over the past one year.

FOGSI and AstraZeneca have decided to project the Safe motherhood goal into the public domain to increase awareness of safe labour practices and thereby advance the agenda for reproductive health. Several indigenously developed protocols have been extensively evaluated in field trials to assure safe labour outcome and also to provide relief from the pain and agony of the 'birthing' process. It is also vital to improve the health of women before pregnancy and educate them on pregnancy management, informed Dr. Shyam Desai, President, FOGSI.

According to the World Health Report 2005, an estimated 1.5 lakh maternal and one million newborn deaths take place each year in India. The major causes of these deaths have been identified as haemorrhage (before and after birth), toxaemia (hypertension during pregnancy), anaemia, obstructed labour, puerperal sepsis (infections after delivery) and unsafe abortion.

Doctors believe that lack of skilled birth attendants and absence of sufficient numbers of primary medical care centres combined with ignorance among families have resulted in India having one of the worst report cards on maternal mortality in the world.