Cultural Context of Male Participation in Maternal Health Among Tribal Population of Gadchiroli District in Maharashtra
[Thesis]
Jungari, Suresh Banayya
Paswn, Balram
International Institute for Population Sciences University
2019
246
Ph.D.
International Institute for Population Sciences University
2019
Background: There is growing emphasis on the role of men's participation in reproductive and maternal health around the world since the 1990s; but the desired level of participation not been achieved. The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) at Cairo in 1994, and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) emphasised on men's role and its importance in reproductive health. There are no studies conducted with tribal population to examinie the male participation in maternal health. Objectives: The broad objective is to examine the male participation maternal health among the tribal population. The specific objectives are following: 1.To study the extent of awareness among the males about pregnancy complications, ANC, natal, and PNC care. 2. To examine male participation in antenatal, delivery, postnatal care, and family planning in tribal communities. 3. To study the availability, accessibility and quality of maternal health services in the study area. 4. To study the cultural and traditional practices during pregnancy and childbirth among the Gond and Madiya tribes. Data and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the rural Gadchrioli district of Maharashtra, India, during November 2014-March 2015. This study included a representative populationbased sample of 385 men whose wives had given birth in last 2 years at the age of 15-49 years. A multistage sampling strategy was adopted to select the respondents. Univariate, bivariate, and binary logistic regression analyses were applied to examine the associations. Results: The result revealed that an increase in husbands' education level increased the wives' utilization of ANC care services. The type of tribe also contributed to significant differences in ANC utilization (OR: 2.64; 95% CI: .847-8.24). Regarding standard of living, husbands who were poor were 0.22 times less likely than husbands in the rich category to report the utilization of ANC by their wives. Men with partial or complete knowledge of pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum complications were more likely to utilize all maternal health services by their wives. Around 22% of the men accompanied their wives to ANC, 25% were present at the time of delivery of their children and 25% accompanied their wives for PNC. Participation in household work, support to wives in other aspects was slightly better. Most of the men reported that they don't think it is necessary to accompany wife for ANC is emerged a great reasons for less participation. Whereas some of the men believe these entire maternal health issues are women concern. Statistically; a significant association is seen of education, family type, wealth index, and the men's knowledge about complications after delivery for male participation in ANC, delivery and PNC. Conclusion: Male participation in maternal health found to be minimal among the Gond and Madiya tribal communities. However, the male participation in household chores found to be satisfied. The reason major reasons for lack of male participation in maternal health reported were lack of time to participation, patriarchy, gender role attitudes, and community cultural and traditional factors. Further, health care provider's inability and lack of adequate health infrastructure also reasons for the lack of male participation. Enhancing male or husband participation in the maternal health care is one of the importantcomponents to safe motherhood experience for women in many ways.