Maternal and Child Health Care Practices in Pode Community (A Case Study of Kirtipur Municipality)

Abstract

The study, “Maternal and Child Health Care Practice in Pode Community,” has been carried out to assess the healthcare practices of an untouchable Newar caste of Kirtipur. It tries to find out the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics; to assess the antenatal care, delivery and postnatal care practices; and to examine the practice of colostrum feeding, breastfeeding, child immunization, and additional food feeding by the women of the Pode community. A total of 30 respondent mothers were interviewed on maternal and child health care, and 14 respondents were taken for focus group discussion. For key informant interview, the chairperson of health post, volunteers, social worker, TBA, etc., were consulted.

In the study area, ages of the respondents are between 15-35 years. Among them, the 25-30 age group women were married at early age (15-20 years), and literacy rate of the women has been found low. All of the respondents are landless and most of the respondents are job holders. Regarding health care practices, around 55.55 percent of the respondents indicated that they went for health checkup more than two times during pregnancy, and 56.68 percent of the total mothers have taken more than two doses of TT injection during their pregnancy period. The study has confirmed that around 63.33 percent of the mothers delivered their babies in hospital and 36.67 percent mothers delivered at their own homes. All of the respondents had fed colostrum and 73.34 percent respondents have breastfed for more than two years.

Overall, although the findings suggest that these practices are satisfactory from a national level point of view, their performance can be said below par if we compare it to other communities of Kirtipur and if we consider the proximity of health centers. Their social exclusion as Dalits—more specifically Dalit women, along with their low economic and political status as well as their occupations per se, are seen to be responsible for their somewhat low performance on maternal and child health care.