Utilization of Antenatal care Service in Urban Slums of Sambalpur, Odisha

Rapid urbanization is resulting in the development of slum areas throughout the city and the slum dwellers are also becoming a part of the urban population.Though the urban population was blessed with all the modern health facilities, the accessibility and utilization of health services by the slum dwellers need to be studied.The current research study was conducted to assess the utilization of antenatal care (ANC) services by pregnant women living in urban slums.A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out among a total of 306 pregnant women selected purposively who were in the third trimester of their current pregnancy and habitat of slums of Sambalpur Municipality Corporation, Odisha, India.The study was undertaken from July 2024 to December 2024.The mean age of the participants was 27.104.06years with 88.1% literacy rate and 75.5% were homemakers.About fifty percent of women experienced their 1st delivery.Throughout pregnancy, all the studied participants received antenatal checkups.However, about 41 percent of women underwent ANC less than 4 times.All the deliveries were conducted at the institution.There was a significant association between ANC visits with the place of the last delivery (p<0.001) and a significant association between the number of ANC visits at the place of the last delivery (p=0.019).Study shows the inadequate utilization of ANC services by slum women in terms of timely registration of pregnancy and immunization status and compliance of IFA supplements.Hence the study recommended for more involvement of health care providers in the ANC services and the need for recasting for the slum habitats which should be need-based and address the drawbacks of the available ANC services.