Heart disease linked to maternal deaths? A new ICMR study attempts to join the dots

New Delhi: It was only when 23-year-old Dhaanu* succumbed to heart failure during childbirth at a village in Tamil Nadu that her family realised that she had an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. Neither did they know that her death could have been prevented had she been screened in the early stages of her pregnancy. The primary health care centre in her village lacked diagnostics or a skilled obstetrician to read the warning signs. All that’s set to change with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) now funding a study to analyse the number of maternal deaths because of heart diseases and develop a treatment protocol to prevent future mortality. This is needed to further arrest India’s maternal mortality because the most common risk factors, like infections and excessive bleeding, have been controlled well while heart disease is emerging to be the next big risk factor.