An apex body for Ayurvedic research under the Ministry of Ayush is all set to undertake a study to assess the efficacy of Ayurvedic drugs in pregnant women for management of anaemia and other complications.
The study conducted by the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS) will cover 9000 pregnant women.
As part of the study pregnant women will be given medicines made of herbs, put on a specific diet and made to follow a particular lifestyle as per requirement to prevent various complications during pregnancy like edema, constipation, nausea, backache and control anaemia and attain normal birth weight of baby, Dr N Srikanth, Deputy Director General in the CCRAS said.
The aim is also to help in augmentation of milk after delivery, he said.
The two-year long study will be conducted at 30 primary health care centres of Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.
"The normal birth weight of a new born ranges between 2.7 and 3.2 kgs. To ensure that the baby attains this normal birth weight, mothers are given given six different types of Ayurvedic medicines. The expected outcomes of the study are reducing complications in pregnant women and their babies," Srikanth said.
The participants of the study will be divided into two groups.
One comprising 4,500 pregnant women will receive conventional ante-natal care under the existing national schemes of the government while the second group comprising of same number of women will be given Ayurvedic medicines, diet and lifestyle advocacy along with conventional ante-natal care regimen.
The women included in the study belong to the age group of 18 to 40 years.
A senior Ayush ministry official said the project staff including Ayurveda doctors and senior research fellows, pharmacists have already been deployed at primary health centres for the study purpose.
"We will also provide health education to these women on hygiene and pregnancy care. The study will go on for two years," he said.
The current study has been based on a pilot study conducted on 2,465 pregnant women in Himachal Pradesh by the CCRAS in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the state government in 2000-2005.
"The outcomes of the previous study were encouraging. We managed to achieve the normal birth weight of babies, there was significant increase in haemoglobin levels in mothers and deliveries were normal ones with lesser number of complications.
"To introduce these Ayurvedic interventions and medicines in the National health care delivery, studies have been conducted on a larger population for creating tangible evidences," Srikanth said.
The National Population Policy 2000 and National Health Policy 2002 (health ministry have emphasised on integration and mainstreaming of Indian system of medicine focussing on reproductive and child Health.
The National Health Policy 2017 emphasises on mainstreaming of AYUSH systems through integration and co-location. Further, this policy also aims to reduce maternal mortality ratio (MMR) to 100 by 2020 and infant mortality rate (IMR) to 28 by 2019.
"To fulfil these goals of National Health Policy, the CCRAS has undertaken this study and it is being executed through CCRAS Institute at Nagpur --- Regional Ayurveda Research Institute for Mother & Child Health (RARIMCH). The aim of the this project is to study feasibility of introducing Ayurvedic interventions in Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) through integrative health care services," Srikanth said.
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