As Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla walks through the narrow alleys of a slum in Kota, his parliamentary constituency, to enquire about the health of young mothers and their newborns, his stern facial expression-usually on display while he is chairing the House proceedings-gives way to a benevolent smile. Always up for promoting a public cause, from mobile kitchens to free clothes for the poor, Birla found a new mission when Kota's JK Lone Hospital reported a high incidence of infant deaths in December 2019. "Often, a newborn is weak because of the mother's poor health, which in turn is due to the lack of adequate medical advice during pregnancy," says Birla, whose wife Amita, a gynaecologist, helped him understand that maternal and infant mortality in India are not always related to poor health infrastructure or doctors' negligence.
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