An epidemiological study to assess the utilization of maternal and child health care services at sub-center level by the target population in Northern India, Kashmir valley

Abstract

Background: In any community mothers and children constitute an important and priority group especially in developing countries like India where, their numbers (constituting up to 2/3rd of total population), vulnerability to morbidity and mortality (constituting as special risk group) and amenability to prevention of ill health and mortality, to a large extent, makes them candidate for special attention. By improving health of mothers and children in any society we contribute to a large segment of general population and it is because of this special and usually combined health services for mother and child, the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Services are considered globally more so in developing countries. The main aim of MCH Services remains to ensure that, throughout pregnancy and puerperium, every mother maintains optimal health and at the end of pregnancy we have a healthy mother and a healthy baby and promote the child health throughout the infancy and childhood. Delivery of MCH services to the vast majority of rural communities has been through Sub-centers that are manned by two Multipurpose Health Workers (one male and one female [ANM]) and cover a population of 5000 in plain areas and 3000 in hilly or difficult terrain areas. The functions of female worker are mainly confined to Maternal and Child health (essential obstetric care, new born care, child health promotion, family planning, health education. Aims & Objective: To assess the Utilisation of maternal and child health services at Sub-center level by target population in a sub-center area. Material and Methods: A sample of 40 sub centres was obtained by multistage sampling procedure. The sample size was obtained by calculating number of mother child pair beneficiaries to be interviewed for assessing the utilization of maternal and child health services. Results: Out of the total 671 mothers studied 640 (95.4%) beneficiaries had received any antenatal check-up while 4.6% had not received any antenatal check-up. Only 10.3% of the women had greater than 3 antenatal check-ups at the sub centre while 5.46 % had received 3 antenatal checks up and 1.4 % had less than 3 antenatal check-ups at sub centre. MPHW (Female) was the service provider for antenatal care in only 3.1% of cases while 86.4% of the women preferred a doctor for antenatal check-ups. Conclusion: Utilization of ante-natal services is very low, intranatal is almost non-existent, post natal maternal services are decimal but child health services and some components of family planning services are being utilized from sub centers. KEY-WORDS: Maternal and Child