Health Seeking Behavior of the Mothers Residing in Slums of Cities of Rajasthan: With Special Reference to Antenatal Care Services

Prof. (Dr.) Laxmi Thakur, Mr. Arvind Singhal

There is strong relationship amongst the individual practices and characteristics like attitude, cultural beliefs, knowledge and practices prevalent in the society and utilization of health services. Health seeking behavior is governed by multiple factors. Most of the maternal deaths are avoidable because of availability of healthcare services for preventing or managing complications are well known. All women need access to antenatal care services in pregnancy, skilled care during childbirth and care & support in the weeks after childbirth. It is also important that all births are attended by skilled health professionals as timely management and treatment can make the difference between life and death. The cross-sectional study was carried out to explore the Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of slum dwellers with special reference to utilization of maternal health services and to analyze the relationship of socio-economic and demographic factors influencing utilization of these services. A total of 359 residential households were set as sample size for the study in all selected cities of Rajasthan State. The coverage of ANC was very poor among the slum women. It was also extracted from the data that Ante-Natal Care services were not being fully utilized by the slum women and factors like time consuming process at hospital, quality of services rendered at govt. hospitals, distance & poor transport facilities, lack of knowledge about maternal health services and cultural beliefs were major obstacles in accessing ANC services at healthcare institutions. Therefore, ANC services like assistance of service providers; IFA intake and TT vaccination among the women should be enhanced in the slum areas. Government, private sector or NGOs all three should jointly do this by increasing infrastructure and facilities. Besides this, the slum people of the study areas should be made aware of the available health facilities in health institutions and pregnant women and their family members should be encouraged to receive Ante-Natal Care services.