One of the biggest social determinants of health to maternal mortality in India includes growing up with a low socioeconomic status. Wealth status has divided many countries in half, including the United States,  since the beginning of time and India is no exception to this. It should not remain this way, but socioeconomic has a huge impact on survival rate in a health crisis because healthcare is not easily affordable, even for those who do have a steady income (Marmot, 2005). When I chose my topic of maternal mortality in India, I knew I would be seeing a gap between the rich and poor, but I did not realize just how big the gap would be.

In terms of the maternal mortality rates in India, mothers in poverty areas of the country just do not have as much access to medical resources. In fact, Kumar (2010)  concluded that 80% of maternal deaths occurred in families who lived in poverty and 61% of mothers that died were in the lower caste. Additionally, mothers in the lowest socioeconomic class had about two and a half times higher mortality rate than mothers in the higher classes (UNICEF). This could be a result of the fact that the amount of skilled attendants at birth in rural areas is a lot lower than that of urban areas. According to UNICEF, 43.3% of skilled attendants are present at birth in rural areas and 75.6% are present at birth in urban areas. Moreover, if a woman does decide to go to a hospital to give birth in a rural area, there is a huge delay in the time it takes to get there. For example, the time it takes to get to a hospital in some rural areas can be up to four or five hours, but a woman who is suffering from a postpartum hemorrhage would die in about two hours (Kumar, 2010).

In general, with its large population, India is a country filled with poverty. Therefore, it makes sense that out of the 536,000 maternal deaths that occur each year around the globe, about 136,000 occur in India (Vora et al., 2009). Moreover, the maternal mortality ratio in India is about 210, but the maternal mortality ratio in the United States was about 12.7 (UNICEF). The difference in these numbers supports the fact that the United States, a country with the majority of people in the middle class, has more resources for women giving birth and more access to healthcare. 

In conclusion, there are a lot of social determinants that affect maternal mortality rates in India. However, the one that I decided to focus on was poverty and socioeconomic status of the women giving birth and how income can truly play a role to the lives of these mothers. According to Marmot (2005), the many statistics on this topic prove that poverty in India is affecting maternal mortality rates, but now the country needs to take action and take steps forward to relieving the effects of this social determinant. 

Works Cited

Kumar, S. (2010). Reducing maternal mortality in India: Policy, equity, and quality issues. Indian Journal of Public Health, 54(2), 57.

Marmot, M. (2005). Social determinants of health inequalities.

Maternal Health. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://unicef.in/whatwedo/1/maternal-health

Vora, K. S., Mavalankar, D. V., Ramani, K. V., Upadhyaya, M., Sharma, B., Iyengar, S., … Iyengar, K. (2009). Maternal health situation in India: a case study. Journal of health, population, and nutrition, 27(2), 184–201. doi:10.3329/jhpn.v27i2.3363