In News:

• Union Minister for Women and Child Development informed the Rajya Sabha that the Central government aims to reduce stunting and under-nutrition (underweight prevalence) among children under 6 years by 2% per annum.

What’s in today’s article:

• National Family Health Survey – About, NFHS-5 Highlights
• News Summary

National Family Health Survey (NFHS):

• The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India.
• The first National Family Health Survey (NFHS-1) was conducted in 1992-93. The fifth round (NFHS-5) of the survey was conducted in 2019-21.
• The main objective of the NFHS has been to provide reliable and comparable data relating to health and family welfare and other emerging areas in India.
• All the rounds of NFHS have been conducted by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, as the national nodal agency.
• Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Health & Family Welfare

Major Highlights of NFHS-5:

• The report comprises of detailed information on key domains of population, such as:
  • health and family welfare; fertility; family planning; infant and child mortality; maternal and child health; nutrition and anaemia; morbidity and healthcare; women’s empowerment etc.
• Key results from NFHS-5 –
  • The Total Fertility Rates (TFR), an average number of children per women, has further declined from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level between NFHS-4 & 5.
  • Overall Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) has increased substantially from 54% to 67% in the country.
  • Institutional Births have increased substantially from 79 percent to 89 percent in India.
  • Stunting has reduced from 38.4% to 35.5%, wasting from 21.0% to 19.3% and underweight prevalence is down from 35.8% to 32.1%, according to the data.
    • Stunting is defined as low height-for-age.
    • Wasting is defined as low weight-for-height.
  • Women (15-49 years) whose BMI is below normal has reduced from 22.9% in NFHS-4 to 18.7% in NFHS-5.
    • Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to adult men and women.

News Summary:

• Union Minister Smriti Irani mentioned in the Rajya Sabha that the Central government aims at lowering stunting and under-nutrition (underweight prevalence) amongst youngsters below 6 years by 2% each year.
• The Union Minister stated that the government aims to reduce:
  • low birth weight by 2% per annum, and
  • Anaemia among children between six and 59 months, as well as women and adolescent girls (15 to 49 years), by 3% per annum.
    • Anaemia is a medical condition in which the blood doesn't have enough healthy red blood cells.
• The Union Minister also highlighted data w.r.t. NFHS-5 –
  • Meghalaya has the highest number of stunted children (46.5%), followed by Bihar (42.9%).
  • Maharashtra has 25.6% wasted children (weight for height) — the highest — followed by Gujarat (25.1%).
  • Jharkhand has the highest percentage of women (26%), between 15 and 49 years, who have a below-normal Body Mass Index (BMI).