Publication:

A cross-sectional study of antenatal care services utilization, delivery practices and factors affecting them in urban slum area of India in 2015

Background Antenatal care (ANC) is one of the important factors in reducing maternal morbidity and mortality has wide regional variation. The present study was carried out in an urban slum area to determine the pattern of utilization of ANC services, awareness regarding Janani suraksha yojana (JSY) national programme and MEMS (Maharashtra emergency medical services) toll free helpline number (108 and 102).

Methods A community based cross sectional study was conducted in urban slum area of India in the month of October 2015. Probability proportion to size sampling was used to select 256 mothers who had delivered within last 1 year. After obtaining written informed consent, the participants were interviewed using a predesigned, semi-structured questionnaire and the information was cross-checked with the available antenatal cards to minimize recall bias. The data were analysed considering the level of significance at 95%.

Results The utilization of the ANC services by the respondents was 86.33%. 43.36% were aware of JSY program while only 17.19% were aware of MEMS toll free helpline numbers.

Conclusions Utilization of ANC services was significantly associated with mother’s education and parity status of mother (Chi square=8.349; p<0.05). The main reasons for inadequate utilization of ANC services were non acceptability and inaccessibility of hospital services, inappropriate advice from health workers, and lack of awareness about ANC services and toll-free helpline numbers.