Maternal Health of Rural Women: A Study of Shahuwadi Tahsil of Kolhapur District

Although motherhood is always a positive and fulfilling experience, for many women, it is associated with suffering, ill health and even death. Throughout human history, pregnancy and childbearing have caused death and disability among both women and neonates. Pregnancy and childbirth are of course not diseases (WHO, 2009). However they carry risks because of the varied and embedded complications, practices, processes, beliefs, life conditions and the immediate environment. These risks can be reduced by health care interventions such as the provision of maternal and public health care, supplementary nutrition, family planning, safe abortion and improvement in other reproductive conditions. These risks can be reduced by health care interventions such as the provision of maternal and public health care, supplementary nutrition, family planning, safe abortion and improvement in other reproductive conditions. Maternal death may be caused by the interplay of several interlinked factors: medical conditions directly associated with childbearing(e.g. haemorrhage, sepsis, eclampsia, obstructed labour); other health and disease conditions (e.g. malaria, heart disease, other communicable and non-communicable diseases); and socio-economic factors such as patterns of gender politics that result in early marriage and high fertility, and compromise of access to nutrition, health care and contraception, especially amongst the poor, villagers and marginalized communities.

Maternal health is a key indicator of women's health and status. Maternal health refers to the health of women during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. It encompasses the health care dimensions of family planning, preconception, prenatal, and postnatal care in order to ensure positive and fulfilling experience in most cases and reduce maternal morbidity and mortality in other cases. It is in this context the present study has been conducted.