Medically Verified By: Dr. Shweta Garg
Is Anemia India’s Silent Epidemic? Half of Women Are Affected, 1 in 5 Mothers Never Survive | EXPLAINED
Anemia is the silent health crisis majorly in rural India. The statistics reveal that every second Indian woman is anemic. One in every five maternal deaths is directly due to anemia.
At one camp in a village, I saw a woman barely around 20 years of age. Her face was swollen, completely pale, and she was sitting silently at a corner outside her home. I asked her mother-in-law about her, tested her hemoglobin level, which was around 3 gm. I instructed her mother-in-law to take her immediately to the government hospital for blood transfusion and get all the blood tests done. For her mother-in-law, anemia was not considered a major illness.
In another village I went, a first-time pregnant woman was looking severely anemic. Her blood test was never done, and she thought that the weakness during pregnancy was normal. I counselled her family and referred her to the hospital, which prevented severe pregnancy-related complications.
Anemia affects both adults and children of both sexes. Pregnant women and adolescent girls are most susceptible and most affected by anemia. As I am working in the government hospital, I daily check the reports of patients both men and women diagnosed with anemia. Even children are also not untouched by this disease.
Anemia is a condition in which the hemoglobin concentration is lower than normal. As a result, the amount of oxygen delivered to the body tissues is decreased.
As I am regularly doing health check-up camps in rural areas, I found that in the villages of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, anemia is quietly compromising the lives of women and children, even before the symptoms appear.
Tiredness, weakness, irritability, sleepiness, and growth restrictions are some common manifestations in children, but still, it remains unnoticed by the parents.
Anemia is easily preventable and treatable, but still, it is impacting the health, productivity, and future of millions of rural families due to lack of awareness, timely diagnosis, and treatment.
While conducting awareness and screening camps, I myself observed how anemia is deeply affecting the overall health, especially of rural communities.
A woman looks after everything taking care of all family members, doing household chores, even helping her husband in farming ignores her own health, and this health neglection gives birth to diseases like anemia. Because of this, children frequently suffer in silence.
People are often not aware that iron deficiency, poor nutrition, excessive bleeding, or prolonged menstrual blood loss could be the root cause of anemia. The lack of awareness, limited access to nutritious iron-rich foods, and insufficient medical diagnostics available in rural areas make the cycle of anemia complex.
Anemia negatively impacts nearly every organ of the body. It weakens the body's immune system, reduces energy levels, and leads to pregnancy-related complications like preterm delivery, severe postpartum hemorrhage, susceptibility to infections, maternal heart failure, miscarriage, and even maternal death.
Children with anemia experience fatigue, slowed growth and development, poor appetite, behavioral problems, weakness, tiring too easily, and poor overall development.
Anemia is not only about treating it with medicine; communities should be empowered with knowledge, awareness, and preventive measures.
No it needs only simple and affordable solutions. The good thing is that anemia is largely preventable. Diet plays a very important role in preventing anemia. Just by consuming sufficient quantities of seasonal, cheap, locally available foods, anemia can be prevented to a larger extent.
Iron-rich foods include spinach, methi, imli, beetroot, guava, oranges, jaggery, chana, lentils, legumes, leafy greens all cheap, locally available, and rich in essential nutrients. Cooking food in iron utensils can also help to some extent. Even if a woman uses these iron sources in her daily meals, it can keep iron deficiency away.
Iron and folic acid supplementation programs for adolescent girls and pregnant women are highly effective.
Anemia is such a huge problem that the Anemia Mukt Bharat program was launched by the Government of India with the aim to decrease anemia prevalence in the country. The program works on a 6x6x6 strategy SOLID BODY, SMART MIND campaign, which includes:
The 6 target groups are:
Awareness is very important for women to understand the hazards of anemia, the importance of regular check-ups for timely diagnosis, and adherence to supplementation schedules. That's why I take awareness sessions during village camps.
Through my rural camps and awareness programs, over 1 lakh women and children have been screened for anemia by hemoglobin testing, and I reached more than 5 lakh community members through awareness campaigns.
Women, health care workers, and Anganwadi workers learned how to recognize early symptoms of anemia such as fatigue, pale skin, increased heart rate, etc. They were also taught the importance of consuming readily available iron-rich foods to keep their children anemia-free.
The positive results have been reflected in better health outcomes.
A woman's health is often not taken seriously, especially in rural areas. It's often assumed that if a woman feels fatigued or tired, it's normal and does not need medical treatment. Women also assume that the weakness is due to household work and ignore it until the condition becomes severe.
Conducting women-only awareness sessions, where they can openly discuss their health problems, has shown improved results. Our team has conducted door-to-door hemoglobin testing, which helped in detecting anemia cases timely and ensuring correct treatment. Education and awareness lead to behavior changes in communities.
Though anemia is silent, it is preventable. It only requires early diagnosis, understanding the cause, education about proper nutrition, regular screenings, and consistent awareness. This requires the combined efforts of local communities, doctors, healthcare providers, and policymakers so that screening becomes easily accessible, and proper nutritional guidance is available.
Small efforts can bring remarkable changes. For communities to flourish, women and children must be healthy.
