Maternal mortality in India: an update

This study presents estimates of maternal mortality for India from two indirect procedures, the sisterhood method and a regression method involving sex differentials in adult mortality, and compares them with estimates available from other sources. The sisterhood method is applied to the data collected in a human development survey that covered all rural areas of India in 1994, while the latter method is applied to the data on mortality and fertility rates from India's Sample Registration System. The level of maternal mortality for the early 1980s implied by the sisterhood method is found to be about 15 percent lower than the estimate for the same period derived from the method that uses the data on sex differentials in adult mortality. The estimate for the 1990s from the latter method is consistent, however, with the direct estimates available from the National Family Health Survey and the Sample Registration System. The study also discusses the socioeconomic differentials in maternal mortality implied by the sisterhood data, and spatial and temporal variations in maternal mortality derived from the regression method.