Awareness about antenatal check up increased in Kanpur district: National Family Health Survey 5 report

Kanpur: Awareness about antenatal check-up has increased in the district, says a report of the National Family Health Survey .

According to the report, 69.9 percent women in Kanpur district had four antenatal check ups during their pregnancy.

According to the additional chief medical officer, who is also RCH nodal officer Dr SK Singh, whereas in the report of NFHS-4, this figure was only 36 percent.

Dr Singh said that proper care of both mother and child was very important. As soon as pregnancy was confirmed, the woman should contact the ASHA worker of her area for all necessary prenatal check ups.

If needed ANM and doctors could be consulted by visiting the nearest health centre. “Efforts are being made to increase the number of prenatal check ups in the district by the health department. Awareness is being created with the help of ASHA and Anganwadi workers”, he said.

Chief medical superintendent of the District Women Hospital (Dufferin) Seema Srivastava said that antenatal check up of a pregnant woman was performed four times in a nine month period. “Antenatal check up is also called antenatal care of ANC. The first check up is done within 12 weeks or after detection of pregnancy. The second check up is between 14 weeks 26 weeks and the third test between 28 weeks and 34 weeks while the fourth test is from 36 weeks till the time of delivery”, she said.

Antenatal check up includes HIV and other necessary tests such as BP, haemoglobin, weight, height, urine, sugar and protein tests. Besides these tests, pregnant women are administered tetanus injections, iron and folic acid tablets. If the expecting mother is found anaemic, she is given nutritional advice and medicines, Seema Srivastava further said.

District maternal health consultant Hari Shankar Mishra stated that according to the feeding on HIMS portal 127915, ANCs were registered in the district in 2021-22 in which ANC tests were done on 60,606 pregnant women four times in nine months.