Socio-demographic status and access to safe motherhood and antenatal care among tribal women

In most developing countries, access to safe motherhood services in rural areas is more limited than in urban areas. This issue is important for Hill tracts because nearly half (46 percent) of its population lives in rural areas. The objective of the study was to assess the level of safe motherhood and Antenatal Care (ANC) among tribal women. The study revealed that, out of 250 respondents, majority (55.6%) were in the age group of 24-26 years with the mean age of 26.61± 2.2, almost all (95.6%) respondents were Buddhist and most (74.4%) of the families were nuclear families. Most of them (94.0%) had 3-6 members in their family and most (72.8%) of them were housewives. Maximum (41.2%) respondents earned in between 90001-17000 BDT per month with average income of 17694.40± 15031.76 BDT and 39.2% of them were lived Kacha house. Majority (53.2%) of the respondents got married in between the age of 19-22 years (22.68±2.22) and 48.4% had first conceived in between the age of 24-27 years (23.79±2.14). Most (73.6%) of them were knew that the health centres provide Antenatal Care and almost all (92.8%) received ANC but most (73%) of them did not complete four visits ANC during their pregnancy. It also revealed that, ANC service centres availed mainly (68%) from govt. Hospital and ANC services provided mostly (82.8%) from doctors. Most (77%) of the respondents claimed that the communication system to reach the service centre was well enough and almost all (91%) of the respondents took decision on their own to go to health centre to receive ANC. Almost all (97%) the respondents opined they didn’t have any barrier to go to health centre to receive ANC. Most (84.4%) of the husbands of the respondents knew about the antenatal care and maximum (53.6%) knew that there is heath centre in their area. Almost all (95%) of them had normal delivery and (93%) had no knowledge regarding Postnetal Care (PNC). Most (93%) of the respondents had no knowledge regarding PNC and almost all (98.8%) of the respondents had no awareness about the importance of at least 4 times of antenatal care visit. Majority (65%) of the respondents received vaccine for 5 times and almost all (92.8%) had no pregnancy complications. From this study we found that, most of the respondents received antenatal care services but not by the meant of four visits ANC. Therefore development of evidence based ANC package is required. The timing, frequency and exact content of ANC visits require further testing and harmonization