Denmark's Crown Princess Mary Elizabeth visits AIIMS in national capital

Denmark's Crown Princess Mary Elizabeth visited AIIMS, Delhi, on Tuesday and shed light on the importance of quality maternal healthcare to fight maternal mortality, the hospital said in a statement.

According to it, the Danish crown princess was apprised of the remarkable progress made by India in reducing maternal mortality over the past years.

The national maternal mortality ratio has declined to 97 per 1,00,000 live births in 2018-20 from 130 in 2014-2016, the statement said adding that India is fast approaching the UN Sustainable Development Goal of reducing the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030.

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at AIIMS is committed to promoting women's health and it offers state-of-the-art care to high-risk pregnancies, including prenatal diagnosis and fetal therapy. It is also a WHO collaborating centre for research in human reproduction, the statement said.

It said that Crown Princess Mary Elizabeth's visit to the AIIMS, Delhi, has shed light on the importance of quality maternal healthcare to fight maternal mortality.

The statement said that in 2017, it partnered with Maternity Foundation to scale up the use of the organisation's Safe Delivery App in several states in eight languages.

The Safe Delivery App is a clinical job aid and education tool, that provides updated clinical guidance on how to manage childbirth and common birth complications accounting for a large number of all maternal and neonatal deaths.

The app is free to download, and it also works offline, making it possible to reach even the most remote healthcare workers, the statement said.

Crown Princess Mary is the patron of the Maternity Foundation and during the visit, she participated in a skills training session, where midwives and other healthcare workers demonstrated the use of the app as an integrated part of their training programmes.

Anna Frellsen, the CEO of Maternity Foundation said, ''We are proud to scale up the Safe Delivery App and programme in India together with the Indian government and key partners. Through our digital programme, we can reach healthcare workers in areas of India where the maternal mortality rates lack behind the national average.'' ''We can build up their skills and knowledge, ensuring safer births for both the mothers and their babies and hence improve the quality of care provided,'' she said.

AIIMS Director Dr Srinivas said, ''Enhancing midwifery skills and enabling task-shifting is one of the priority agendas in maternal health in India presently. We see an important role of future collaborations with Danish universities and agencies to enhance midwifery training in India.''

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