Maternal Health Correlates Of Neonatal Deaths In A Tribal Area In India

ObjectivesIn tribal areas of India, the coverage of antenatal care service is poor and rate of home delivery is very high Moreover, most of these deliveries are either unattended or attended by unskilled traditional birth attendants. Evidences suggest that the rate of neonatal mortality is also very high in these areas. The aim of the current study was to explore maternal factors, explicitly focusing on antenatal care and maternal health seeking pattern in relation to neonatal health in tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh, India. Study designThis community based study was conducted in two phases: the first phase involved use of qualitative methods and aided in obtaining relevant information in the quantitative phase from mothers who had delivered in the one year period prior to the study. MethodsInformation from analysis of qualitative data was used to construct a questionnaire, which was administered in the subsequent quantitative phase wherein a population-based survey was undertaken. Reported infant deaths were investigated through verbal autopsy. Multi-stage systematic random sampling was used to identify study participants. The study recruited 230 subjects for the quantitative study. All women of the reproductive age group (15 � 45 years) in the tribal areas of Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh state were eligible for the study. ResultsAmong the 230 women studied, 74% utilized public health facilities for antenatal care (ANC) and the provision of ANC services was good with high coverage of Tetanus toxoid (97%) and excellent provision of IFA tablets (93%). Our results also show that 56% of women delivered at home, 38% at a public health facility and 5.2% could avail private facility. Qualified doctors conducted only 10% of deliveries and 29% were conducted by ANM. Age of mother, total number of women in the