Despite women forming a significant portion of Bengaluru’s adult population, the civic authority is yet to formulate a plan to vaccinate them.
A month had gone since the Centre allowed states to vaccinate lactating mothers, but the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has no strategies to reach these women through its 27 maternity homes.
Despite conducting counselling for lactating women in facilities like Vani Vilas Hospital, not even one woman has volunteered to get the jab due to vaccine hesitancy.
As of May 31, the city has 1,36,971 lactating mothers and 87,989 pregnant women. Vani Vilas Hospital alone attends t o1,200 deliveries each month.
“We have been counselling pregnant and lactating women, but they are not ready to get vaccinated,” said Dr Geetha Shivamurthy, medical superintendent, Vani Vilas Hospital.
She said about 3,000 to 4,000 women could be found in the hospital’s outpatient department every month, but the hesitancy largely stems from anxiety over adverse reactions to the vaccine, reduced milk secretion and pre-term delivery.
Breastfeeding after the shot
Some hospitals, on the other hand, are flooded with queries. Dr Tulasi Devi, medical superintendent of HSIS Gosha Hospital, said pregnant mothers are asking if they can breastfeed after vaccination. “We have told them to go ahead,” she said.
From March, the hospital has conducted 307 deliveries of mothers with the Covid-19 infection, while it conducted 550 deliveries a month before the pandemic.
Dr Vijay Aggarwal, head of medical operations, Motherhood Hospital, revealed that they have 6,000 pregnant women across all their branches. “Women are asked not to take the jab 15 days prior to their due date,” he said. “Otherwise, they can get vaccinated during the middle of their pregnancy to have a safe and healthy delivery.”
No data of lactating mothers: BBMP
BBMP’s Special Commissioner (Health) D Randeep said the civic authority does not have the number of lactating mothers who have been vaccinated.
“If the number of vaccinated lactating mothers has been captured on the Co-WIN app, we will be able to get that data. Otherwise, we have not maintained that data separately,” he said.
He said the civic authority also needs to check if the ‘thayi’ card given to pregnant women has been updated with vaccination information.
“We will draft a plan soon and send it to the maternity homes,” Randeep added.
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