Summary The advice was released by a government ministry that promotes traditional and alternative medicine.
New Delhi (AP) - India’s government is advising pregnant women to avoid all meat and eggs in a move that is receiving widespread criticism from the medical community.
The advice came through a government booklet, titled Mother and Child Care. The booklet was released last week by the Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy, a part of the government’s ministry that promotes traditional and alternative medicine.
Doctors say the advice is dangerous, considering India’s already poor record with maternal health. Women are often the last to eat or receive health care in traditionally patriarchal Indian households.
Malnutrition and anaemia, or iron deficiency, are key factors behind India having one of the world’s highest rates of maternal mortality, with 174 of every 100,000 pregnancies resulting in the mother’s death in 2015. That’s better than five years earlier, when the maternal mortality rate was 205 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, but still far worse than China’s 27 per 100,000 or the United States’ 14 per 100,000, according to Unicef.
India already suffers from malnutrition among pregnant women. A study on working women in a village in south India showed that around 80 percent of women had inadequate calorie and protein intake.
“The government is doling out unscientific and irrational advice, instead of ensuring that poor pregnant women get to eat a nutritious, high-protein diet,” said gynaecologist Arun Gadre.
Moreover, the booklet also said that pregnant women should shun “impure and lustful thoughts” and look at pictures of beautiful babies to benefit the foetus.
It is the latest push for vegetarianism by prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, which already advocates avoiding beef and strictly limits the transportation and slaughter of cows, which are considered sacred by Hindus.
But the latest homily to pregnant women has outraged the medical community.
“This is a national shame. If the calories of expectant mothers are further reduced by asking them to shun meat and eggs, this situation will only worsen,” Gadre said. “This is absurd advice to be giving to pregnant women in a country like India.”
Malnourished women are more likely to give birth to underweight babies, who then are in danger of being “stunted” or not growing to their full height and weight. A full 48% of all Indian children under the age of five are considered stunted, according to a 2015 report by Unicef.
“Undernourished girls grow into undernourished women. Married by their families while still in their teens, these girls become pregnant by the time they are 17 or 18, when their bodies have not matured enough to safely deliver a child,” said Amit Sengupta, a physician and health care activist with the Delhi Science Forum, a public advocacy organisation.
He said the government’s advice to pregnant women betrayed “backward thinking” and hostility toward evidence-based science.
