Twitter
Advertisement

Malnutrition deaths: 'We need awareness, not free food,' says father from Maharashtra's Palghar

Palghar has seen 315 malnutrition deaths of children below the age of 6 till September this year

Latest News
article-main
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

Me and my wife live in Palghar's Mokhada area. We've been married for around two years now. Food is not a problem here, there is plenty to eat. Even our pets never go hungry. Last year my wife got pregnant but delivered the baby in the sixth month itself. We didn't know what happened. We were told to take our newborn to Kutir Rugnalaya, Jawahar and then we were sent to the Nashik civil hospital. Our baby's condition just got worse during this time. I did not have money to take my baby to a private hospital and by the next day our baby had died. I didn't know what we had done wrong.

The second time my wife got pregnant I took very good care of her. I would not even allow her to do any household work. Health workers at a local NGO kept telling her to get a sonography done, but I didn't take it seriously. Eventually, I took her to Nashik as they recommended, but during our journey back her health worsened. She was nine months pregnant then. Doctors at the rural hospital where I live, asked me to dial 108 for the ambulance but by the time the vehicle arrived my wife had delivered the baby.

She weighed just 2 kgs (2.5 is the normal birth weight). Doctors sent us to Nashik in an ambulance and when we reached there I was asked why I got the baby without any oxygen mask. My baby's health had deteriorated and this time too my baby didn't survive.

We lost our babies not due to lack of food but because of lack of facilities. Both the times, doctors kept referring us to other hospitals, while the health of my babies just got worse.

Often it is too late by the time the ambulance arrives. The rural hospital has just one doctor and a nurse. There is also lack of awareness about the right kind of food to eat.

I recently attended a training session about malnutrition during which I realised that the way mothers breastfeed their newborns here is wrong and our food is not nutritious enough. We don't want politicians to come and give us money, we need education and training. I want the ASHA workers and aanganwadi workers to be trained properly so they can guide others and save young babies from dying.

*Prakash didn't want to be named, fearing backlash from local leaders

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement