Socio-Economic Background of Mothers and Utilization of Antenatal Care Services in Urban Slums of Burla, Sambalpur, Odisha

Introduction: -Antenatal care (ANC) is the care during pregnancy by skilled health care professionals. The main aim of ANC is to ensure best health conditions for both mother and baby during pregnancy. Objective: -To assess the utilization of ANC services provided to mothers during pregnancy and to find out the influence of socio-economic factors on ANC practices in the field practice area of UHTC, Burla. Materials And Methods: -It was a community based cross-sectional study conducted among 202 mothers who delivered their child in last 1 year. The study was carried out from September 2016 to February 2017 in the field practice area of UHTC, Burla. The data regarding socio-demographic variables and utilization of ANCs services were collected through a predesigned pretested semi structured questionnaire after obtaining verbal informed consent. The data obtained were analysed by using simple number and percentage. Results:-100% mothers registered their pregnancy with an early registration of 84.15%, ≥4 ANC checkups 68.32%,minimum 1 dose TT immunisation 94.55%, ≥ 100 IFA tablets consumed 45.05% with full ANC care only 37.63%.The utilization of full ANC services was very low among mothers from lower caste groups SC(35.21%) and ST (25.80%),illiterate(0.0%) and primary standard(2.92%) education ,those with petty business/shop (7.14%) and house hold income from Rs 5000 -10, 000(32.65%) and < Rs 5000(32.60%). Conclusions: - Though the ANC care was more than the state and national level it was inadequate and inequitable. Full ANC was very low among mothers of lower caste groups, low standard of education, petty business and low household income.