Utilization of antenatal services in urban slums of Jorhat municipality, Assam, India and the socio - demographic factors affecting it

Abstract

Although efforts have been made to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) -5 "Improvement of Maternal Health" of reducing the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by three-quarters by 2015, this goal has not ABSTRACT Background: Antenatal service is an important strategy for improvement of maternal and child health, reduction of maternal mortality and neonatal death. But mere presence of this service is not enough. Utilization of the antenatal service is the most important aspect and there are many socio demographic factors that influence the women for its utilization. The objective of the study is to assess the utilization of antenatal services in the urban slums of Jorhat municipality, Assam and the socio -demographic factors affecting it. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was done among women of the slum areas who had at least a child less than one year by using a pre structured and predesigned questionnaire. Results: Adequate utilization of antenatal service was 19% while inadequate utilization was 66%. 74.2% of women had at least one dose of TT and 87.2 % consumed Iron and Folic Acid tablets for four months or more. Women who were high school and above had either adequate (13.2%) or inadequate utilization (81.1%) and only 5.7% of them did not have any antenatal service at all as compared to 37.5% among illiterates. Religion, caste, age of the women, parity did not have much role in its utilization. Among women from the joint families who did not have any antenatal service was only 4.8% as compared to 19.2% of women from nuclear families. Conclusions: Majority of women had inadequate utilization of antenatal service in the slum areas and education played a very important role.

Utilization of antenatal care services in tribal area of Madhya Pradesh: a community based cross sectional study

“…8 Study conducted by Singh et al, 23 and Rahman et al, who observed that 24.7% and 19% pregnant females received full antenatal care. 23,27 According to Banerjee, 86%, Javali, 62.6% and Singh et al, 52.5% mother received full ANC services in their study which is higher than that seen in present study. 24,28,29 The difference in utilization of ANC services may be due to variation in awareness health in mothers, availability of health services and health care seeking behaviour of pregnant women.…”