Becoming a mother is a beautiful and overwhelming thing. It is important for women to feel safe and secure while on this journey. Many mothers have had to go the journey of motherhood during this Coronavirus pandemic and they have handled the situation quite gracefully. At Medicircle, we present to you the National Safe Motherhood Day Awareness Series, wherein we are featuring successful Mompreneurs, Healthcare Professionals, Obstetricians, Gynaecologists, and also Entrepreneurs working on safe motherhood and raising awareness about adequate access to care during pregnancy, childbirth, and postnatal services.

Sumona Karjee Mishra is the founder of Prantae Solutions, which is a startup venture that aims to create affordable technologies for rare and neglected disorders. The For profit venture aims to channelize the entire profit into the development of new technologies and creating health awareness in the country with the prime focus on maternal and childbirth. She's also a mother and a teacher who believes in values ethics and progressive thinking.

The right advice and right diagnostics helps in pregnancy

Sumona shares, “In Indian Society, Pregnancy is being considered as a natural process which gets over in nine months. What we do maximum during this period is performing ANC tests and going for regular checkups. After this also if any unknown symptoms we come across, we just google it and take it casually, thinking it will go as this period completes. Urban women also think the same way. During unplanned pregnancy, one may not be aware of various disorders or infections that can impact pregnancy. For example, if a woman gets Rubella during pregnancy, it can affect the brain development of the baby or miscarriages in some cases. But if it would have been planned pregnancy, women can take the vaccination for Rubella before planning only. With the increased blood pressure, urine protein also increases which results in swelling of the face or blurring of the vision, which cannot be considered as a normal symptom. In some cases, it may lead to pregnancy disorders like pregnancy related hypertension or preeclampsia. Folic acid or iron supplements are very much important during pregnancy. So, a woman should be enough aware of these common things. It is important to know how the pregnancy is going. Anxiety should be taken care of by taking the right advice, making choices for the right diagnostics,” says Sumona.

Complete family support is essential for balancing work and kids

Sumona advises, “The best strategy for balancing work and kids is to have your family support. I was in Delhi earlier. But when I decided to start my company and thought of raising my child in an environment where she has a complete family, we moved to our native place with my in laws. There are so many responsibilities that if I would have been in a nuclear family, I may not have taken well but here the complete family really takes care of all the responsibilities.”

It is our moral responsibility to take care of the women around us

Sumona stresses, “Just like our house helpers take care of our family, the same way it is our also moral responsibility to take care of them too. If not directly then indirectly, helping the women in their family may be their daughter or daughter in law. If we get to know that they are pregnant, at least a few advice or alerting them for intake of iron supplements, symptoms that might be an indication of high risk pregnancy in order to ensure safe pregnancy. We can advise them to go for regular check-ups, should visit the doctor and not ignore any common symptoms like swelling in the body or having blurry vision.”

Pregnancy is neglected healthcare aspects 

Sumona adds, “Pregnancy is one of the neglected healthcare aspects. ANC test ensures the wellness of fetus that is present in the womb. But there are only a few tests, or you can say no test that tells you about the physical health of the mother or any complication that is impacting the mother. Because if the mother is having any problem then eventually it is going to impact the baby. So, it is always important to take care of the mother.”

A step towards safe pregnancy

Sumona informs, “This journey of nine months should be memorable and easy going. In this pandemic, not everyone can visit a doctor anytime for silly things, so there is a device that can monitor pregnancy at home. It’s not an app but a device by which women can do analysis by themselves and can share the report with the doctor. So, you will get an idea of how the pregnancy is going and be relaxed. Right now, the device is in the Clinical trial phase. Once the clinical trial is over, it will come in the market.”

(Edited by - Renu Gupta)