Policy Barriers Preventing Access to Emergency Obstetric are in Rural India

India with its one billion people contributes to about 20% of all maternal deaths in the world. Even though infant mortality has declined in India maternal mortality has remained high at about 540 per 100,000 live births. Recent scientific evidence shows that access and use of high quality emergency obstetric care is the key to reducing maternal mortality and that high risk approach in ante natal care do not help in reducing maternal mortality significantly. This paper analyzes the policy level barriers, which restrict access of rural women to life saving emergency obstetric care in rural India. The paper is based on study of policies, research reports and experience of working in the area of maternal health over last several years. The paper describes how policies restrict basic doctors from performing obstetric surgical procedures including cesarean section even in remote areas where there is no specialist obstetrician available. The para-medical staff such as the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife is also not allowed to manage obstetric emergencies in rural areas. The policy also does not allow nurses or basic doctors to give anesthesia. As there is limited number of anesthetists in rural areas, this further reduces access to life saving emergency surgery. New blood banking rules are very utopian, requiring many unnecessary things for licensing of a blood bank. Due to this, already limited access to blood transfusion in rural area has further reduced. Thus many restrictive polices of the government have made emergency obstetric care inaccessible in rural areas leading to continued higher maternal mortality in India.

Interpolating function and Stokes Phenomena

When we have two expansions of physical quantity around two different points in parameter space, we can usually construct a family of functions, which interpolates the both expansions. In this paper we study analytic structures of such interpolating functions and discuss their physical implications. We propose that the analytic structures of the interpolating functions provide information on analytic property and Stokes phenomena of the physical quantity, which we approximate by the interpolating functions. We explicitly check our proposal for partition functions of zero-dimensional $\varphi^4$ theory and Sine-Gordon model. In the zero dimensional Sine-Gordon model, we compare our result with a recent result from resurgence analysis. We also comment on construction of interpolating function in Borel plane.Comment: 21+6 pages, 16 figures; v2: minor corrections; v3: minor correction

Exploring Lovelock theory moduli space for Schroedinger solutions

We look for Schroedinger solutions in Lovelock gravity in $D > 4$. We span the entire parameter space and determine parametric relations under which the Schroedinger solution exists. We find that in arbitrary dimensions pure Lovelock theories have Schroedinger solutions of arbitrary radius, on a co-dimension one locus in the Lovelock parameter space. This co-dimension one locus contains the subspace over which the Lovelock gravity can be written in the Chern-Simons form. Schroedinger solutions do not exist outside this locus and on this locus they exist for arbitrary dynamical exponent z. This freedom in z is due to the degeneracy in the configuration space. We show that this degeneracy survives certain deformation away from the Lovelock moduli space.Comment: 22 pages, Title changed, contents revised with focus on Schroedinger solutions, extra references added, to match with the version published in Nucl. Phys.

A Calogero-Sutherland Type Model For Branched Polymers

We show that a Calogero-Sutherland type model with anharmonic interactions of fourth and sixth orders leads to the matrix model corresponding to the branched polymers. We also show that by suitably modifying this model one can also obtain N-particle problems which are connected to matrix models corresponding to the pure gravity phase as well as corresponding to the transition point between the soap bubble and the branched polymer phase.Comment: 6 pages, no figure

The Changing Role of Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) in India: Implications for Maternal and Child Health (MCH)

The world’s democracy and its second most populous country, India was the first developing country to have a national family planning program and has implemented countrywide reproductive health programs such as RCH I. India’s primary health care and the family planning programs have come a long way after the independence in improving health indicators in general, yet it has high material and under five mortality rates. The country has developed an extensive network of primary health centers and sub- to provide basic medical care to huge (80%) rural population. In the rural health care system, the ANM is the key field level functionary who interacts directly with the community and has been the central focus of all the reproductive child health programs. In contrast with resident ANM of sixties who was providing delivery and basic curative services to the community, today’s commuting multi purpose worker is more involved in family planning and preventive services. This has implications on the implementation and coutcomes of maternal health programs in rural India. The midwifery role of the ANM should be restored if the goal of dcreasing maternal mortality has to be met. The priority will have to change from family planning immunization to comprehensive reproductive health including maternal and neonatal care. These changes will require sustained and careful planning/resource allocation. Increasing resources along with systemic reforms will improve health status for women and children who are the focus of Reproductive Child Health programs.