What Benefits Would Pregnant Women Receive From Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA)

The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India launched the Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Yojna in June 2016. Our honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi talked about the aim and the highlights of Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Yojna in the July 2016 episode of Mann Ki Baat.

In his speech, he stressed why it is necessary to take proper care of the health of pregnant women in our country if we want to curb the high maternal-infant mortality rate. He also explained that Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Yojna (PMSMA) would help in bringing down both as it focuses on providing assured and free-of-cost comprehensive and quality antenatal care to all pregnant women. These checkup programs will be universally conducted on the 9th of every month.

What Is PMSMA?

PMSMA is a government-run program that guarantees a minimum package of quality antenatal care services to pregnant women in their 2nd / 3rd trimesters of pregnancy on the 9th of every month at designated government health facilities.

The fact that PMSMA has adopted a systematic approach to motivating private medical practitioners to participate and volunteer for the campaign sets this program apart from the previous government health-related schemes. It also works on designing new and effective strategies to spread awareness about the program and make it appealing to the private sector.

What Are The Key Features of PMSMA?

• According to the reports released by the Registrar General of India 167 out of 100,000 pregnant women lose their life during pregnancy or while delivering the baby. UNICEF shared that over 55,000 pregnant Indian women die at the time of delivery. However, with timely medical check-ups and intervention, these deaths can be prevented. Taking into account the seriousness of the matter, the government of India decided to prioritize it on its agenda. The multiple medical schemes and initiatives are proof of this.
• PMSMA was devised to ensure that every pregnant woman in India gets examined by a physician. The main objective of this program is to provide the facility of proper checkups to every pregnant woman at least once during the PMSMA and then rightly followed up by the physicians. This will surely help in reducing the MMR and the number of neonatal deaths in our country.
• The government has successfully gathered support for PMSMA from the private medical sector. The private OB/ GYN specialists, Radiologists, and physicians have come forward to do their bit by providing their antenatal checkup services to PMSMA.
• Every pregnant woman who gets examined under this scheme is awarded with either a red or green sticker. The red color sticker is given to women with high-risk pregnancies while the green color sticker is awarded to women when no risk factor is detected.

What Are The Objectives of PMSMA?

As discussed above, the main goal of PMSMA is to focus on the health of pregnant women in India which in exchange will decrease the MMR and NNMR. The other objectives that come under the PMSMA umbrella are:

• Guarantee one antenatal checkup for all pregnant women in their second or third trimester by an OB/ GYN specialist/physician.
• Providing diagnostic applicable services, screening, and counselling to pregnant women.
• Maintaining proper documents and records of the examined pregnant women
• Appropriate and thorough management of Anaemia, Pregnancy induced hypertension, Gestational Diabetes etc in the examined pregnant women.
• Enlisting and identifying high-risk pregnancies
• Right birth planning and appropriate complication readiness for each examined pregnant woman.
• Encouraging pregnant women for check-ups, and diagnosis of health problems at early stages.
• Adequate management of examined pregnant women with malnutrition

How has PMSMA Free Check-up helped women?

• The PMSMA program has proved to be very beneficial for pregnant women in India, especially in rural areas. As per the directions from the government, all government hospitals and health centres now come under this program.
  
• Following government regulations, they provide free health checks ups to all pregnant women on the 9th of every month. These checkups include all the applied blood tests, blood pressure tests, haemoglobin tests, checking weight, sugar level tests and general screening and general screening.
  
• The PMSMA scheme gives the right to every pregnant woman to approach any government hospital or health centre, or private hospital that is enrolled in PMSMA during her 3-6 months of pregnancy for check-ups.
  
• As we all know that Indian women hardly take care of their health and most of the pregnant women in the rural areas and the economically weaker section of our country are suffering from malnourishment. Due to the lack of resources, they don’t get the required diet and nutrition during pregnancy. And they end up giving birth to undernourished children with abnormalities.
  
• These abnormalities can be avoided with the help of timely checkups and early diagnosis. But earlier it was not possible for these women to get access to the necessary medical care during their pregnancy because of poverty and lack of awareness.
  
• However, the PMSMA program now ensures that pregnant women from all sections of society get access to free medical check-ups on the 9th of every month. They can get themselves examined at any government hospital or health care centre in the country.
  
• The initiative has brought a significant drop in the number of children born with abnormalities. The timely check-ups followed up by appropriate health monitoring and providing diet and nutritional supplements that are offered by the PMSMA program have helped the women from the backward sections of our country who find it difficult to get two meals in a day after performing all the difficult household chores.
  
• PMSMA along with Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) has proved to be a boon for these pregnant women. Under JSY pregnant women can avail the facility of free deliveries at government health centres and at accredited private hospitals.

Conclusion

According to UNICEF, infant mortality and post-birth complications are the results of malnutrition. However, we can reduce them with the help of timely check-ups and providing nutritional diets to the would-be mothers. The PMSMA is a great scheme and it has saved the lives of many pregnant women and newborns. But if the government wishes to go a long way and achieve all its objectives then the government must sponsor a free nutritional diet access and supply plan for pregnant women.

References

1. NHSRC India. Care During Pregnancy and Childbirth Training Manual

2. About Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan. NHP India