When Leela first experienced dizziness, she took a 10-minute break and resumed harvesting crops in the fields for six more hours until she collapsed. The dizzy spells continued for over a week until community health care worker Bhomitra Sutar examined her.
“Looking at her eyes, I understood something was wrong,” Sutar said. Blood tests revealed she was severely anemic. By this time, Leela, a farmworker in Loyra village, in northwestern India’s Rajasthan state — who prefers using her first name to protect her privacy — was two months pregnant.
Sutar referred her to the nearby Bargaon Community Health Center for intravenous iron sucrose treatment. “I knew she wouldn’t go easily because missing even a day’s work could cost her a lot.”