Are we ignoring the Importance of Sanitation while Mourning the Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes? Shekhar Chauhan 1* , Ratna Patel 2 , Dhananjay W. Bansod 2 Department of Population Policies and Programs, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India; Department of Public Health and Mortality Studies, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India ABSTRACT There is enough literature available in the public domain in defining risk factors for the prediction of adverse pregnancy outcomes; hardly a few discuss sanitation as a risk factor. Sanitation is under-researched to adverse pregnancy outcomes. The consequences of maternal sanitation behavior during the period of pregnancy has never received the required attention. With the revelation of Swatch Bharat Mission in 2014, India would unquestionably outhouse one of its stickiest blemishes of open defecation by providing individual latrines to every household, what remains is the need to promote the usage of those latrines by bringing a change in people ’s behavior and understanding the cultural barriers. We tried to shed some light on the importance of sanitation in the follow up of adverse pregnancy outcomes in India. The result found that sanitation is one of the crucial facets for women who are either planning to have a baby or are about to deliver a baby as findings suggest evidence between sanitation and adverse pregnancy outcome. There is a need to study this aspect more rigorously as this is still an under-researched area. Further studies in this dimension will help policymakers in designing the appropriate interventions to reduce the adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with poor sanitation. Keywords: Sanitation; Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes; Open Defecation MINI REVIEW Pregnancy outcomes refer to those life events eventuate to the new-born infant from the age of viability (28 weeks) to the first week of life. Thus pregnancy outcomes as an umbrella term include normal live birth and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Adverse pregnancy outcomes include early neonatal deaths, stillbirth, low birth weight, and preterm birth. Worldwide, nearly 3 million third trimester stillbirths occur annually, and a similar number of children die within the first 28 days of life [1,2]. These deaths account for approximately 7% of the global burden of disease, which is higher than that of HIV/AIDS [3]. The adverse pregnancy outcomes are still not documented in a seminal manner as there are many reasons for the onset of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Various available literature in the public domain have reported not one but numerous risk factors for Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes such as Obesity [4,5], anemia [6,7], diabetes [8], antenatal care [9], maternal tobacco consumption [10], history of abortion [11], environmental pollution [12], hypertension [13] and many others. Exposure to unsafe water, poor sanitation, and poor waste management during pregnancy is associated with the increased risk of infection in the mother, which may lead to low birth weight and preterm deliveries [14,15]. The consequences of poor sanitation to ill-health is well-known [16]. What is not known is the contributions of sanitation to adverse pregnancy outcomes, and it remains a run-down dimension [17,18]. Despite persistent endeavours at every level, access to sanitation is limited in many developing countries, including India. House-listing and housing census of India, 2011, let drop that approximately 53 percent of the households in India lack a proper drainage facility within their premises. Open defecation is still a noteworthy problem. Why open C l i n i c s i n M o t h e r a n d C h i l d H e a l t h ISSN: 2090-7214 Clinics in Mother and Child Health Short Commentary Correspondence to: Shekhar Chauhan, Department of Population Policies and Programs, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India; E-mail: shekhariips2486@gmail.com Received: December 15, 2020; Accepted: April 8, 2020; Published: April 15, 2020 Citation: Chauhan S, Patel R, Bansod DW (2020) Are we ignoring the Importance of Sanitation while Mourning the Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes? Clinics Mother Child Health. 17:164. DOI: 10.35248/2090-7214.20.17.346. Copyright: © 2020 Chauhan S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Clinics Mother Child Health, Vol.17 Iss.2 No:1000346 1