Maternal and child health: is South Asia ready for change?

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7443.816

BMJ 2004;328:816-819 (3 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7443.816

Education and debate

Maternal and child health: is South Asia ready for change?

Zulfiqar A Bhutta, Husein Lalji Dewraj professor of paediatrics and child health¹, Indu Gupta, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology², Harendra de'Silva, professor of paediatrics³, Dharma Manandhar, professor of paediatrics⁴, Shally Awasthi, professor of paediatrics⁵, S M Moazzem Hossain, project officer⁶, M A Salam, director⁷

¹ Aga Khan University, Karachi 74800, Pakistan, ² Institute of Postgraduate Education and Research, Chandigarh, India, ³ Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians, Colombo 7, Sri Lanka, ⁴ Department of Paediatrics, Kathmandu Medical College, Kathmandu, Nepal, ⁵ Institute of Clinical Epidemiology, King George's Medical University, Lucknow (UP), India, ⁶ MCHC Section, Unicef, Saudi Pak Tower, Blue Area, Islamabad, Pakistan, ⁷ Clinical Sciences Division, ICDDR, B: Centre for Health and Population Research, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Correspondence to: Zulfiqar A Bhutta zulfiqar.bhutta@aku.edu

South Asia still has a long way to go to meet the United Nations'millennium development goals for maternal and child mortality

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A review of maternal and child health in South Asia a few yearsago revealed a sorry picture.¹ The region had persistently highrates of maternal and infant mortality that had largely remainedresilient to change. In recent years, several countries in theregion have seen relative prosperity, middle class affluence,and unprecedented economic development.^w1 It is uncertain, however,whether this has been associated with improvements in health,especially that of women and children, and whether the underlyingdeterminants of ill health have changed. We review current maternaland child health in South Asia and suggest interventions thatmay make a difference.

We reviewed all available information on maternal and childhealth indicators in the South Asian region (Bangladesh, Bhutan,India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives). We alsoincluded Afghanistan, which is technically not part of the SouthAsian Association for Regional Cooperation, because of its strategicand . . . [Full text of this article]

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