Delhi: Fertility rate down, hospital deliveries up – ET HealthWorld

TFR at the national level stood at 2, declining from 2.2 in 2015-16. For the survey, information was gathered from 9,486 households, 11,159 women and 1,700 men.

“Due to the Covid-19 situation and imposition of lockdown, NFHS-5 fieldwork in phase-II states/UTs was conducted in two parts. The fieldwork for Delhi was conducted from January 4, 2020 to March 21, 2020 prior to the lockdown and from November 21, 2020 to January 20, 2021 post lockdown by the population research centre, Institute of Economic Growth,” read the survey report.

NFHS-5 (2019-2021) includes some new topics, such as preschool education, disability, access to a toilet facility, death registration, bathing practices during menstruation, and methods and reasons for abortion.

There was also a rise in adolescent girls getting pregnant. While in the last survey, women aged 15-19 years who were already mothers or pregnant stood at 2.1, it surged to 3.3 in the latest report.

However, Delhi saw an improvement in certain indicators, such as infant and child mortality. The neonatal mortality rate went down from 17.8 to 17.5. There was a drop in infant mortality and under-five mortality rates too — from 31.2 to 24.5 and 42.2 to 30.6.

The cases of institutional births went up from 84.4 to 91.8. More women opted for institutional deliveries at public facilities as well as going for normal birth. The survey report suggested a drop in births delivered through C-Section, especially more in public hospitals.

Dr Surveen Ghumman Sindhu, director and head, infertility and IVF, Max Hospital, Panchsheel Park, noted that more women were opting for careers and getting late into marriage, which were some factors for the rise in infertility rate.

“However, male infertility has increased tremendously. If earlier it was 38%, now it has gone up to 50%. Lifestyle factors contribute a lot to infertility — stress, junk food and others. Keeping laptops on lap and usage of mobile phones also affects it. Endocrine substances slowly destroy ovaries, all of which are leading to low fertility rate in urban areas,” said Ghumman.

Dr Sheeba Marwah, associate professor, department of obstetrics and gynecology, Safdarjung Hospital, stated that there was an increase in awareness regarding family planning through government programmes. However, the conversion rate of this awareness to adoption still remained quite poor.

“It will take strong efforts to dispel myths and bring about a positive change in making people across socioeconomic and religious divides to adopt various family planning methods and restrict the population,” added Marwah.