Joy amid the storm: a cyclone brings the stork to 1,600 mothers shifted to safety in Odisha

Pranati Das's home birth during Cyclone Dana showcases Odisha's resilient disaster management system for pregnant women.

Pranati Das’s modest 900-square-foot house is nestled in the heart of a vast expanse of green paddy fields. Just 10 km from the Bay of Bengal, off Odisha’s coast, the house in Kendrapara district’s Giriapahi village is abuzz with cheer. All 17 family members are celebrating the arrival of a new member: a boy, born a week ago.

The baby, 31-year-old Pranati’s third child, was born amid winds gusting over 100 km per hour and rain lashing the windows. He arrived with Cyclone Dana, classified as ‘severe’, which made landfall on October 25. Named by Qatar, ‘dana’ means generosity in Arabic. That night, the cries of nearly 1,600 newborns echoed in primary health centres (PHCs) and hospitals along the State’s coast. The mothers had been shifted to these safe spaces during the lull before the storm.

The State’s disaster managers are familiar with deliveries in public health institutions during cyclones or other natural disasters. Over the past couple of decades, shifting pregnant women to safer locations like cyclone shelters and hospitals has been a routine part of their protocol. However, a large number of women delivering babies during Cyclone Dana’s landfall has multiplied their sense of personal fulfilment.

During the cyclone, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi issued orders for field-level officials to ensure all expectant mothers were admitted to public healthcare facilities. Up to 4,872 women were transferred to hospitals or Maa Gruhas (waiting facilities for pregnant women). Of the 2,865 successful deliveries, 2,367 were normal births, while 498 required life-saving caesarean sections. There were 18 women who bore twins.

There is a well-oiled machinery under the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority that looks after both the run-up to a potential catastrophe and the rescue work after. Set up post the 1999 super cyclone that claimed nearly 10,000 lives, it was the first entity to look at preventive measures. The National Disaster Management Authority was only set up in 2005. In addition, the Special Relief Commissioner looks after relief and rehabilitation.

The Das family’s home has only 100 square feet covered by a concrete roof; the rest is shielded from the elements by asbestos sheets. If wind speeds had reached 130 to 140 km per hour, the sheets might have blown away, forcing the family members to take refuge in a single room. In such a scenario, rushing Pranati to the nearest PHC in Talachua, 10 km away, would have been almost impossible. From a distance, the home is picture perfect. However, reaching it requires navigating a muddy path between two paddy plots, with no pedestrian trail.

Pranati’s expected date of delivery (EDD) was October 28. “The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had predicted the storm would make landfall in my area on the night of October 24 and the morning of October 25,” she says, adding that she was anxious and frightening thoughts began crossing her mind. “My mother-in-law, Janaki Das, is a midwife who has helped many women deliver their babies,” she says.