Figures suggest that Mumbai tops the league of women blood donors in the country.
Not only have the number of women professionals gone up, the number of women blood donors in the city too is up. Women in the state, and especially in Mumbai, have turned life-savers with a significant increase in the number of women blood donors.
Till recently, there was a perceived notion that women were hesitant to donate blood for health reasons. But, with 27,000 women from Mumbai and 75,000 from Maharashtra donating blood every year, the situation is fast changing. Figures suggest that Mumbai tops the league of women blood donors in the country.
“There has been an increase in women donors in the last few years and it is encouraging,” said Dr Sanjay Kumar Jadhav, assistant director, State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC). Maharashtra contributes about 23 per cent of total blood collection in India, he said. Also, the state’s annual blood collection had crossed 10 lakh units in 2008.
Jadhav said that against 93.5 per cent male donors in the state there were only 6.5 per cent female donors. “But this is commendable given their health considerations,” he said. He said that menstruating women lose about 80ml of blood every month.
Besides, due to anaemia and subsequent low haemoglobin count, women are disqualified at blood donation camps. According to the
National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-III, the haemoglobin count in most of the adolescent girls in India is less than the standard 12 g/decilitre. The NFHS report also suggests that nearly 75 per cent women in India suffer from iron deficiency and the number is increasing day by day. More than 56 per cent of married women and 58 per cent of pregnant women are anaemic, while 56 per cent of adolescent girls are anaemic, suggests the report.
Dr Duru Shah, consultant gynaecologist at Breach Candy Hospital agreed that due to lack of nutrition, women develop anaemia. “Most of the times, they do not even realise that they are bleeding excessively,” she said.
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