Hello, I am Dia Mirza and all through my pregnancy, I smoked. Actually, I didn’t, but it doesn’t really matter, because my unborn child and I are a part of the 90% of the world that breathes polluted air. Breathing in Indian cities has been equated to being a regular smoker.

WHO tells us that air pollution kills about 7 million people worldwide each year. In India alone, there were as many as 980,000 deaths in 2019 because of particulate matter.

But these are numbers. Statistics don’t touch us. Data doesn’t shake us. We hear numbers, but we are moved by stories.

Tune in to listen to a true story — my story about my own pregnancy which was complicated by a bacterial infection leading to my extremely prematurely born baby staying away from me in a Neonatal ICU for months from birth.

VO: Dia Mirza

Music: Big Bang Fuzz