Maternal health is integrally connected with women’s overall
socioeconomic well being. Young women, who are neglected and under-nourished as
children, as well as those with an early age of first pregnancy, are more
vulnerable to maternal complication.In roughly estimation that India accounts
for nearly 20 percent of maternal death worldwide. There are number of factors
that contribute to poor maternal health, such as Anemia, which may contribute
to maternal and prenatal mortality and increase the risk of premature delivery
and low birth rates, not receiving an antenatal check up, family prohibiting
the check up and its cost as contributing factors.
The maternal mortality and morbidity are two significant health concerns
because this is related to high level of fertility. Both the WHO and UNICEF has
estimated that India’s mortality ratio is lower in comparison with the ratio of
Bangladesh and Nepal, while this ration is higher than Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The variation in this ration is also prevalent within the country also, as
Kerala having the lowest ratio (87) and MP and Orissa having 700. This
variation of ratio clearly shows that the health services in Kerala is better
and effective than in MP and Orissa, and women in Kerala enjoy better socio
economic status than the tow states in India. In many women health related
study and research, this has been identified that majority of these death could
be prevented if women had adequate health services, either proper prenatal care
or referral to appropriate health care facility. The level of education and
place of residence are also significant factor in availing health related
services during the pregnancies.
In a survey conducted by the International Institute of Populations
Science shows that the information regarding the prenatal health care among the
women is also quite low and almost half of the illiterate women in India also
not receive proper health care in India.The availability of health care services is also important than
awareness about the health care. Generally, this is acknowledged that the urban
women are able to utilize the health care services during their prenatal and
post pregnancies period.This possibly happens because the health services and
health professional in the urban areas are available, even the presence of
private health services are advantageous, while in the rural areas, the
distance of the health center is quite far and the unavailability of health
professionals make this services useless for the rural women.
The NFHS-3 suggests that improving health requires combating traditional
attitude, raising awareness about the benefits of ante and postnatal checkups,
lowering the cost, increasing the availability of ante and postnatal services
and raising women’s nutritional status. Increasing a women’s nutritional
status, along with proper health care during pregnancy can substantially
increase her child birth weight as well as decrease maternal complication.
According to the World Health Organization’s Regional Health Report, the
reproductive health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social
wellbeing…in all matter relating to reproductive system and its functions and
purposes”.
The Reproductive and sexual health is not a personal decision making
area in India. The socio cultural paradigm of Indian society, where the body of
women are a sign of dignity and respect for the family and for the community.
The control of the reproductive and sexual health decision largely depends upon
the husband’s or husbands elder family member’s consent.
This is also matter of
serious concern that the reproductive and sexual health of the Indian man seems
better in certain extent, but the growing cases of HIV/AIDS shows the another
aspect of deterioration in male sexual behavior in India. Even ‘If women have little societal space to deal with the software of
reproductive health - love, romance, relationships - neither do they have any
power to wrestle with the hardware; everything from abortions to gynecological
check-ups remain family decisions. If reproductive health is about the rights
of individuals, particularly women, to make decisions about these issues, then
women's empowerment is clearly the order of the day.
Empowerment, however, is
also a much-mangled term. We understand empowerment to be a process that
enables women to analyze their own situation, decide their priorities, develop
solutions to their problems, and take collective action to improve various
aspects of their lives’ (Advocacy for Sexual and Reproductive Health: The
Challenge in India; Bishakha Datta and Geetanjali Misra Source: Reproductive
Health Matters, Vol. 8, No. 16).
This is a complex socio cultural issues and breaking this or
transforming this cultural idea is time consuming exercise with the consistent
efforts. The role of civil society organization, women’s group and other peer
groups has been recognized as a pivotal factor in addressing the issue of the
reproductive and sexual health.
The most basis biological transition in women is menstrual period. In
rural India, the situation is worse in the context of menstrual hygiene, while
in the urban area, where a large number of women are working in the informal
sector and their needs and aspiration about the health is concerned is almost
negligible. The vulnerability in the reproductive and sexual health is quite
high because it is interrelated with the heavy duties, housework and other
household formalities, which is generally a responsibility of women. The
question here is not who is responsible for this situation or how can
government make the policy to resolve this, unless the community or socio
cultural aspects are transformed?
This is also sheer violation of women’s reproductive rights. Combating
AIDS and other reproductive health problems requires fighting the social taboos
and norms, which prevent women to make their own reproductive health choices
and increasing her easy accessibility of reproductive health services.
