Project Sahara: In Ahmedabad, new tool to help reduce maternal mortality

As such, in November 2018, Babu started a new project, called Sahara, that aimed at reducing haemorrhage-related maternal deaths by providing new mothers with a special suit —the NASG. Babu reasoned that if they targeting reducing maternal deaths, it would, in turn, also improve infant mortality. There were several reasons why he chose to further target PPH-related deaths. For one, he found that a lot of mothers were anaemic because of poor nutrition. This weakness compounds the damage caused by excessive and sudden bleeding. Moreover, women delivering children in rural areas are far away from district hospitals when such complications occur. Data showed that almost 30% of the maternal deaths in the state were because of PPH and these primarily took place within the first 4 to 24 hours after childbirth. Among all the other causes, deaths due to PPH could be averted.

The results are there for all to see. While there were 8 maternal deaths in the district because of PPH between January and November 2018, since the introduction of this initiative there have been no PPH deaths. Today, 40 PHCs in Ahmedabad have an NASG suit each — each suit can be used 140 times — and the government has spent Rs 14,500 per suit under the Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram. The suit is manufactured in Hong Kong and a Bengaluru-based supplier imports it. Not surprisingly, the scale-up of this project is well underway. District development officers of Porbandar, Narmada, and Jamnagar are already looking at this cost-effective initiative, while Bhavnagar has already ordered three such suits.