India's maternal health care benefit excludes many women because of parity requirement, Women's eNews reports

Oct 24 2012

Women's eNews examines India's Indira Gandhi Maternity Support Scheme, a health care benefit offering $80 cash assistance to pregnant women older than 18 years and who do not have more than two living children. "The benefit requires a pregnant woman to register her pregnancy at a health center, accept immunization of the mother and child and agree to exclusive breastfeeding and growth monitoring of children," the news service writes. "One 2011 study, however, based on the latest national family health survey, indicated as many as 63 percent of poor women between ages 15 to 49 would be disqualified from the program because they had more than two children," according to Women's eNews. "With the scheme being piloted in four [high fertility] states, ... health activists contend the government is promoting a coercive two-child policy in the name of population stabilization by offering incentives for only those women who have two children," the news service writes, adding the program would benefit poor women who do not have access to adequate family planning or health services, income, or nutrition (Majumdar, 10/23).