Factors influencing utilization of reproductive health services among mothers in Meghalaya, India.

Background: Antenatal care (ANC) is one of the basic components where it can provide pregnant women with an expansive scope of well-being, health promotion, and preventive health services. However, still 830 women die every day from preventable pregnancy-related causes, and 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries, out of which 20% of these deaths were from India.

Objectives: The objective of this study is to explore the factors influencing the utilization of reproductive health services among mothers and to find the association between various factors and utilization of reproductive health services.

Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted during January-June 2017 among 160 mothers who had an infant aged <6 months in Mawkyrwat Block, South West Khasi Hills District in Meghalaya. Respondents were selected through simple random sampling, and semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analyzed using SPSS 16.

Results: Mothers attending four or more antenatal checkups were 10.6%, where 53.5% of the mothers registered their first ANC checkups only by the second trimester and 57.5% preferred home delivery. Nearly 52.9% of the mothers were staying more than 5 km away from the health-care facilities. The usage of family planning methods was very low, i. e., 96.9% of the mothers are not using any of the family planning methods.

Conclusion: Study finding reveals that the utilization of health-care services was low. Area-specific approaches such as health camps and mobile clinics might result in improved utilization of reproductive health services.