Utilization of Recommended Maternal Health Care Services among First Time Adolescent Mothers: A Comparative Analysis of Rural versus Urban India

This work is an attempt to study first time urban adolescent mother’s health seeking behaviour during pregnancy and delivery in India as compared to first time rural adolescent mothers. It is hypothesized that utilization of... [ view full abstract ]

This work is an attempt to study first time urban adolescent mother’s health seeking behaviour during pregnancy and delivery in India as compared to first time rural adolescent mothers. It is hypothesized that utilization of maternal health care services among first time urban adolescent mothers are low in India. The third round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) data, conducted during 2005-06 is used. The present study is based on sample of currently married adolescents aged 15-19 years (n=24,811) who had given their first birth prior to five years of survey. This sample is divided into two parts i.e. first time rural adolescent mothers and first time urban adolescent mothers. Three dependent variables are considered for analysis viz. at least one ante-natal care, full ante-natal care and institutional delivery including other key covariates. Descriptive analysis is carried out to understand differences in utilization of select maternal health services between these two groups. Descriptive analysis will be followed by multivariate regression analysis. Though findings of the paper suggest that first time urban adolescent mothers are more likely to use maternal health care services than their rural counterpart in India. However, magnitude of utilization of these services are still very low among first time urban adolescent mothers. It is found that only around 25% of first time adolescent mothers in urban India received recommended full antenatal care. Further, it is evident that only around three-fifth of first time adolescent urban mothers delivered in institutions. This percentages were found even lower in rural India. It is important that programs aimed at improving maternal health in country include targeting adolescent mothers irrespective of place of residence. Urban adolescent need equal attention in this regard.