India records gains in maternal and reproductive health: Report

National Family Health Survey (NFHS)‑6 results released by the Health Ministry in May showed significant gains in women’s maternal healthcare access, reproductive health and financial and digital inclusion, a report said on Wednesday.

The report from SBI Research noted material progress over a period of 3 years in terms of child stunting, vaccination, improved health delivery across women and fertility transition.

However, it outlined the need to spend more on holistic healthcare for children as certain child nutritional indicators lagged.

The frequency of NFHS surveys (first initiated in 1992-93) used to happen at highly irregular intervals of roughly 7 years, which was even extended to 10 years.

Subsequently, the gap has been reduced to a fixed 3-year interval under the current government to have a better tracking of indicators.

The survey found that while stunting among children has declined sharply, wasting and underweight rates have shown modest improvement.

States with higher medical & health expenditure as a share of gross state domestic product tend to record larger reductions in underweight and stunting.

The report highlighted a major health transition as the share of women who are overweight or obese rose from 12.6 per cent in 2005–2006 to 30.7 per cent in 2023–2024, signalling growing non‑communicable disease risks such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension.

India’s total fertility rate remained at 2.0 in both NFHS‑5 and NFHS‑6, while contraceptive prevalence rose from 66.7 per cent to 69.1 per cent.

Child marriage has declined substantially, but it has not been eliminated. The proportion of women aged 20–24 who were married before legal age fell from 47.4 per cent in 2005–06 to 20.1 per cent in 2023–24.

This represents a major social and health gain, but the fact that one in five young women still enters marriage early continues to have implications for education, fertility, labour-force participation, and long-term health outcomes.

Women’s financial and digital inclusion is increasingly becoming a channel for health delivery. The proportion of women using their own bank or savings account increased from 78.6 per cent in NFHS-5 to 89 per cent in NFHS-6, while the share of women who had ever used the internet nearly doubled to 64.3 per cent.

(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by Education Post)