Bhubaneswar: As the state government was battling cyclonic storm Yaas, more than 700 births were registered in 10 coastal districts, with some families rushing to name their newborns after the menacing storm, officials said.
Sonali Maiti, a resident of Parakhi area in Balasore, said she couldn’t have thought of a better name than ‘Yaas’ for her baby boy, whose birth marked the advent of the cyclone.
Similarly, Saraswati Bairagi from Kendrapara district said she named her newborn girl after the storm, as that way everyone would remember the time of her arrival.
State government sources claimed that as many as 750 babies have been successfully delivered at the hospitals in 10 coastal districts during the peak of cyclonic storm Yaas that made landfall on the Odisha coast Wednesday.
The Women and Child Development department had directed the officials to locate the pregnant women with the expected date of delivery in June first week and shift them to hospitals as part of the state government’s preparedness to deal with the summer storm.
With the help of Anganwadi workers, ASHA workers and others, the district administrations identified 4,555 such pregnant women. Out of them, 2,107 women, who were expected to deliver very shortly, were shifted to hospitals May 24. Amidst the chaos caused by the cyclone, 750 babies were delivered in 10 coastal districts of the state May 25 and 26, sources said.
Kendrapara had the highest number of deliveries (166) followed by Bhadrak (98), Khurda (95), Jagatsinghpur (84), Jajpur (69), Cuttack (61), Balasore (58), Keonjhar (55), Mayurbhanj (36) and Puri (28). All the newborns and their mothers are safe and secured, state government sources said. Women & Child Development and Mission Shakti department Principal Secretary, Anu Garg, had earlier conducted a review meeting in virtual mode to take stock of the preparedness of the department to deal with the cyclonic storm. Senior officials of the department, DSWOs and CDPOs participated in the meeting.
Garg had directed the field functionaries of the department to ensure proper arrangement for shifting of pregnant women to hospitals.
She had also instructed the Anganwadi workers to make frequent visits to cyclone centres /relief camps. The officials had been directed to ensure medical check-up of high-risk pregnant women, expectant mothers and severely underweight/ severely Acute Malnutrition (SAM) children by following the Covid-19 protocols.
