Maternal Health Care Case Study

It is well recognized that maternal healthcare is essential for further improvement of maternal and child health. Maternal and child health services is said to play a vital role in achieving improved health outcomes. The decision to use health care is undoubtedly influence by the characteristics of the health delivery system such as the availability and accessibility of the services. However, this does not necessarily mean that where there is a good supply of services, demand is created in and of itself, which will then lead to increased utilization. In this context, there has been considerable debate as to whether the mere provision of health services will lead to increased utilization (Magadi and others 2000; Obermeyer 1993; Basu 1990). A situation has been observed that, even under the same condition of availability, there is a variation in the level of utilization of maternal and child health services. It is evident that the characteristics of the health delivery system may not be the only factors for the utilization of health care. Other factors
Maternal health care services fall into three broad categories – prenatal care, health care during child delivery and postnatal care. High rates of maternal mortality associated with childbirth and high infant mortality are observed in rural India along with low rates of antenatal and postnatal care utilization. In addition, the use of these services varies considerably across socio-economic groups and geographical regions. These variations exist partly due to differences in health-seeking behaviour across the groups, determined by economic, social and cultural factors and partly due to differences in access to health care