More than 659,000 newborn babies die every year in India. It is the highest number of newborn deaths in the world. The country also accounts for twenty percent of all maternal deaths worldwide, with more than 150 women dying in India each day due to preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Concerns about maternal mortality ratio and infant mortality rate keep surfacing. Both remain unacceptably high and too much focus is put on childbirth itself and not the periods before or after. India is committed to reaching the Global Sustainable Development Goals and achieving its own national development goals. To improve the quality of care during the intrapartum and postpartum periods, in 2016 the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released guidelines for the standardization of all labor rooms. This was primarily to reach development targets on maternal and newborn mortality. The guidelines help states reorganize their labor rooms for maximum efficiency and quality service delivery. (more…)