A STUDY ON THE UTILIZATION OF ANTENATAL CARE SERVICES IN URBAN SLUMS OF GUWAHATI (METRO) CITY, ASSAM

Jutika Ojah; Sthapana Sharma; Achyut Chandra Baishya; Pankaj Jyoti Barman

Volume : VII, Issue : XI, November - 2017

A STUDY ON THE UTILIZATION OF ANTENATAL CARE SERVICES IN URBAN SLUMS OF GUWAHATI (METRO) CITY, ASSAM

Jutika Ojah, Sthapana Sharma, Achyut Chandra Baishya, Pankaj Jyoti Barman

Abstract :

Introduction– The first step towards ensuring the health of mother and baby are the Antenatal Care Services. However, utilization of Antenatal care services, an essential component of safe motherhood varies widely throughout our country. People of slums of Guwahati city are still living in poor conditions away from health facilities and underutilization of health care services including Antenatal Care services. Therefore the present study is undertaken to assess the utilization of antenatal care services in slum areas of Guwahati (Metro) city of Assam.

Materials and methods– The present cross sectional study was carried out from January, 2017 to June, 2017 in different slums of greater Guwahati city of Kamrup (M) district of Assam. A total of 483 mothers were selected for the study. A predesigned and pretested semi structured schedule was used to interview the mothers.

Results– Majority of the respondents (66.6%) got registered for ANC within 3 months of pregnancy. About 65% of the respondents had 4 or more antenatal visits, about 82.4% took IFA tablet/syrup for 100 or more days and about 92.7% took 2 doses of Tetanus toxoid injections. About 75.3% of the respondents delivered in Govt. facilities. However, home delivery was also seen in about 5.1% of the respondents.

Conclusion– Many people in the slums are still unaware regarding the benefits of Antenatal care services. Good political will, mainstreaming the slum population with the general population and improvement of their socio–economic condition is need of the hour.