Deaths up in city, birth certificates issued fall sharply

NEW DELHI: Ironically, while the number of deaths in Delhi shot up due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a sharp decline in birth registrations has been registered in the first six months of this year, at least on the basis of death and birth certificates issued.
Between January and June, only 1.1 lakh birth certificates were issued, 30,000 fewer than in the same period in 2020 and almost 70,000 less than in 2019, according to data from the public health departments of the three municipal corporations.
Experts surmise that the drop in birth registrations may be due to an increase in home births due to the pandemic, delay in planned pregnancies due to adverse social and healthcare conditions, travel restrictions and large-scale migration of informal sector workers out of Delhi.
Birth registration data for the first six months of 2021 shows that 22,936 births were registered in East Delhi Municipal Corporation, 46,102 in the north corporation and 42,604 registrations in SDMC. In case of east Delhi, the drop in birth registrations has been 38% of the pre-pandemic levels. EDMC had registered 38,218 births in January-June in 2018 and 37,081 births in 2019, with the periodic figures falling after that to 32,647 in 2020 and 22,936 in 2021.
The birth rate during the period from 2001 to 2019 has hovered between 18 and 22 births per 1,000 population. Delhi government’s annual report on birth and death registration states that 3.6 lakh birth registrations took place in 2019, 3.6 lakh in 2018 and 3.7 lakh in 2017.
Delhi has historically had a very high percentage of institutional deliveries, that is birth in hospitals, nursing homes and mother and child welfare centres. In 2019, for instance, out of 3.6 lakh registered births, more than 91% took place in an institutional set up.
TOI had reported in February how the pandemic had reversed the decadal trend of consistent increase in institutional deliveries in the city. A municipal official reasoned that the increase in home delivery of babies due to hospitals being closed for general procedures in the pandemic period could also be a reason behind the drop in birth registrations in Delhi.
Delhi has a robust civil registration system in which 100% of births are normally registered. "Many children who were born at home instead of in a hospital may still not have been registered yet," the official said. "Most of the major hospitals were overburdened by Covid cases and people probably opted not to take the expecting mother to hospital in cases where there were no medical complications. Additionally, the large-scale migration from the city of unorganised sector workers could also have contributed to the downward trend."
Dr Shivani Sachdev, general secretary, Indian Society of Assisted Reproduction, said that this might be a temporary fall in births with many couples postponing their planned pregnancies. "Everyone was in distress and potential parents said they were putting off immediate plans of starting families," said Sachdev. "Pregnant women need family support and all plans would have been affected by the travel restrictions and paucity of medical facilities. Now, couples have once again started coming for consultations in big numbers."