Krupa Ravi says Respectful Maternity Care is every woman's 'fundamental right' - Exclusive

They say child birth is nature’s most beautiful miracle, bestowed on a woman. Therefore, it is utterly important not just for women, but their families and the community as whole to understand the meaning and importance of maternal and neonatal health care. Informed and supportive birthing practices cannot be overstated, yet these subjects are not discussed enough. In order to change the same, Krupa Ravi is turning every stone. Krupa Ravi, who is a celebrated Bharatanatyam artist, strategy leader, and an advocate of respectful maternity care, in our special TOI Women segment got candid about the above mentioned topics and shared anecdotes from her personal life for a better insight. Here are the excerpts from our conversation:“My journey on advocating for RMC and midwifery led care stem from my personal journey of experiencing midwifery led care for the birth of both my children. Early on in my first pregnancy, I was looking for the right doctor and I did visit some of the best doctors where I lived, however as a first time mother, I wasn’t made aware of the choices I had - I did not even know that natural birthing was an option. Somewhere, I was scared and worried that I did not feel at ease with any of the doctors I went too,” she said before adding, “In the second trimester of my pregnancy, two angels came into my life - Indie Kaur, the most amazing friend and midwife that I could have asked for, and Dr. Ragini Verma, who was a highly experienced and senior ObGyn and who was supportive towards midwifery led care.” Krupa then continued, “Since then, I was introduced to Hypnobirthing by Indie and her team at Fernandez Hospital Hyderabad, and that served as a ripe opportunity to involve my support system - my husband, brother, parents and in-laws into birthing classes, where there was knowledge building, awareness about the entire process. These folks became my birth companions and the rest is history!” “After my RMC and midwifery led natural birthing experiences, I promised myself that I will advocate and make a contribution towards this cause, such that all women everywhere receive RMC, as it is their fundamental right,” she quoted.In our conversation, Krupa shared a few common practices and rights of a mother, which is not a common knowledge. She mentioned, “Things like birthing in a position of the woman’s choice (on all fours, side-lying, squatting, etc. instead of enforcing the lithotomy position if it is an uneventful pregnancy and labor).” She continued, “The golden hour post birth, breast-crawl, Kangaroo Mother Care / Skin to Skin (especially for premature babies) avoiding un-necessary episiotomies, delayed cord-clamping, not bathing the baby immediately after birth - the importance of micro-biomes for the new-born, hypnobirthing and birth companionship are all evidence-based, best practices which more communities that are not practising it should know of, as these ultimately lead to improved maternal and neonatal health outcomes.”“Also, awareness about ways to support a mother during the postpartum phase is critical so that her support system can support her in the right way. A well-supported mother will lead to a well-nourished baby,” she highlighted.Bringing education and innovation in the field of health is very important for Krupa, and that is where Argsoft comes to play. She told us, “Argusoft, our 26-year-old organization, is a technology engineering firm with a strong practice in the healthtech space as well as AI innovations in this space. Over the past 15 years or so, we’ve built an open-source, comprehensive community health solution called MEDplat, which serves more than 300 million people across 8 geographies and is used by over 450,000 community health workers. My entrance into this world of grass-roots development started as a young high school grad visiting villages in the remotest parts of Gujarat, accompanying my mother during her official visits, which then sparked a curiosity to understand more about the reality of access, equity, availability and opportunity.” “This understanding deepened as I graduated from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and explored these concepts in organized sectors and the corporate world at MNCs. After more than seven years in organizations such as Intel and Google, my journey also expanded on the personal front, as I went through pregnancy, natural birthing and post-partum twice over. This brought back focus on my journey of access, equity and supply of caregivers for mothers and newborns and the large deficits of caregiving in something so fundamental as pregnancy and birth. Since the past year or so, we at MEDplat by Argusoft are sowing the seeds for bringing in greater access and quality of preventive care by digital and technological solutions that work in low-resource environments, in an ecosystem of partners,” she concluded.