‘Nearly 50% of pregnancies in India are high-risk’

A study that analyzed the data of nearly 24,000 pregnant women in India has found the prevalence of high-risk pregnancies to be high at 49.4%.

About 33% of pregnant women had a single high-risk factor, while 16% had multiple high-risk factors.

Northeastern States of Meghalaya (67.8%), Manipur (66.7%), Mizoram (62.5%), and the southern State of Telangana (60.3%) had the highest prevalence of high-risk factors in India. In comparison, Sikkim (33.3%), Odisha (37.3%), and Chhattisgarh (38.1%) had the lowest prevalence of high-risk pregnancies.

With 33%, women in Meghalaya had the highest frequency of multiple high-risk factors, followed by Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, as per a study published recently in the Journal of Global Health by researchers from the ICMR’s National Institute for Research in Reproductive and Child Health (NIRRCH) in Mumbai.

The study used the nationally representative cross-sectional household survey data of the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-2021). The researchers used the unit-level data from the Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) program.

Data from around 28,400 currently pregnant women aged 15-49 were extracted.

Of these, 23,853 pregnant women were included in the analyses at the time of the survey.

While 12,183 (50.6%) of pregnant women had no high-risk factors, 11,670 (49.4%) of pregnant women had one or more high-risk factors and were categorized as high-risk pregnancies.