Social dynamics of institutional delivery services in the urban slums of Delhi

The urban India has got relatively strong health infrastructure and all kind of health facilities and services. For maternal and child health care several health facilities at deferent levels have been made available and accessible in Delhi but the utilization of maternal and child health service has not been accomplished as per the objectives and targets set in the RCH program. This study has been an attempt to explore the utilization of delivery service facilities and the complex relationships between its social dynamics and prevailing delivery practices in the slum in Delhi. The main objective of this paper is to assess the utilization pattern of delivery services in slum area of South Delhi district. For accomplishing the objective, data have been collected from 251 lactating women through systematic random sampling. Collected data have been analyzed using SPSS version 20. As per the findings there is a high correlation between the level of education of the respondents and utilization of delivery services. For delivery services 84.9% mothers have gone for institutional deliveries and only 15.1% mothers have performed home delivery assisted by trained health workers. Mothers belonging to lower social class have also reported lower percentage of institutional delivery. The respondents working in the private sector have shown higher utilization of public health institutions for delivery of child compared to other occupational groups. The study also revealed that the social classes like caste groups of the respondent have shown difference as higher the caste position higher the institutional delivery in the surveyed slum in Delhi.