UTILIZATION OF MATERNAL HEALTH CARE SERVICES IN A BLOCK OF BANKURA DISTRICT IN WEST BENGAL: A CROSS- SECTIONAL STUDY

Abstract

Introduction: Pregnancy is a physiological process but it may become a life threatening condition in absence of proper medical care. Current maternal mortality rate in India is 132 per 100,000 live births.  Mothers and children constitute an important and priority group especially India. The deprivation of women’s health can be recognized in the field of reproductive health. Maternal health care service is a potentially most effective health intervention for preventing maternal morbidity and mortality in particular places where the general health status of women was low. With this aspect objective of this study were as follow: To study the socio-demographic characteristics of recently delivered mothers of Gangajalghati block. To find out the utilization of antenatal, intranatal and postnatal care services among the study subjects. Material &Methods: Community based cross-sectional study conducted among 420 women who had delivered and completed puerperium period in last one year over a period of 12 months. From 30 sub- centres in this block, 14 mothers were selected from each one. Results: Mean age of study women 22.5 ± 3.6years, range 17- 41years. Mean age at marriage and Mean age at first pregnancy of study women were 18.1± 1.5 years (range 15-29years) and 19.4 ± 2.0 years (range 16-35years) respectively. Antenatal registration was done 78.3% of study women within 12 weeks of gestation. Among the Multipara spacing of birth (>3yrs) was adequate in majority of the study women i.e. (57.4%). Four antenatal visits were done by of most of the study women (79.4%). However 16.7 % of study women delivered at home. Four postnatal visits were done only 42.4 % of study women while 5.6% of study women had not received any postnatal visits.

Conclusion: This study revealed that antenatal services had taken most of the study subjects but still 16% of women did not availed the institutional delivery. Less than half of women were received adequate post natal services. Recommended for improvement of institutional delivery as well as all mothers received the adequate post natal services at the block.