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3
rd
International Congress on
Annual Summit on
October 02-03, 2017 Atlanta,USA
&
Microbiology and Pharmaceutical Microbiology
Sexual & Reproductive Health
Journal of sexual and Reproductive medicine | Volume.1, Issue.2
Better Care at Home’: Is it a cultural barrier in utilizing maternal health care services
among currently married women in India
Moatula Ao
Fakir Mohan University, Balasore, India
Objective:
The need for culturally appropriate health facilities is core to WHO’s mandate on ‘Health For All’
and considered pertinent to care during pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal period. But due to the geographical
diversity there exist different cultural beliefs and practices especially on health care. Cultural factors like beliefs
exert an important factor in accessing health care services, choice, and practices. Therefore the study intends to
analyze the perception and practices of maternal health care utilization, the reason for non institutional delivery
and skilled birth attendant for last delivery among the Indian women.
Method:
Study uses India Human Development Survey 2011-2012 (IHDS-II). IHDS-II covered issues on
maternal health care, education, employment, economic status, marriage, fertility, gender relations, etc. It was
jointly conducted by the University of Maryland and the National Council of Applied Economic Research
(NCAER), New Delhi, India. Present study is based on 13,832 currently married women of 15-49 years, who
gave birth during last three years of the survey. Bivariate statistics are used to assess the association, and bivariate
probit model is applied to know the joint probabilities of unskilled birth attendant and home delivery among
women.
Results:
It is found that the main reasons for women resort for home deliveries are because of cultural factor
(62%) followed by lack of awareness. Result reveals that 43% of deliveries are attended by friends/relatives and
36% by traditional birth attendants. Bivariate probit model displays that women with higher education, higher
income and urban residence are more likely to go for skilled birth attendant as well as institutional delivery;
whereas women with higher parity and no ANC visit are less likely to either go for institutional delivery and
skilled birth attendant (p<0.01). One of the interesting findings is that women who reported that they did not
avail skilled birth attendant as well as had home delivery are less likely to report delivery and post partum
complications. The joint probabilistic from the model shows that 22% women will neither avail skilled birth
attendant nor institutional delivery.
Conclusion:
Non-institutional delivery poses a great risk for survival to both mother and child, and challenge to
the Government. In India, although there are various programmes designed to improve maternal and childhealth,
for a large proportion of women it is customary to deliver at home without any skilled birth attendant. In the
absence of complications, in many parts of the country, it is not culturally acceptable to visit health care. Such
culture and behaviour is the challenge in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) no. 3 - to improve
maternal and childhealth.
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