To quantify the economic burden of maternal health care services on Indian households and examine the levels of expenditure incurred in public and private health care institutions at the national, state and community levels. Cross-sectional population data from the 2004 National Sample Survey...

Recent stagnation in the reduction of infant mortality in India can arguably be attributed to early child bearing practices and the lack of progress in lengthening birth intervals. Meanwhile, family planning efforts have been particularly successful in the southern states such as Andhra Pradesh,...

This paper has three main aims: to measure the clustering of children with low weight for age z-scores within families, to establish whether significant differences exist by gender in weight for age z-scores, and to demonstrate whether the presence of a mother-in-law in the household has any...

This paper presents findings from the application of a framework for assessing the quality of care of institutional maternity services in an urban slum in India. The framework divides quality into two parts: the quality of users' experience of care and the quality of the provision of care. Data...

The Republic of Moldova demonstrates the highest reliance on natural contraceptive methods in Europe, and natural methods account for an increasing proportion of contraceptive mix since 1997. This study investigates method use correlates in Moldova in order to explain this high reliance on...

Lanka, Bangladesh are started about the same time as that in Pakistan and there has been a considerable reduction in fertility in these countries. During the past five decades Pakistan experienced a slow pace change in fertility-total fertility rate has declined from eight children per woman in...

Ensuring safe pregnancy and motherhood occupies a pivotal role and has been considered as one of the key issues in the framework of reproductive and child health programmes. Evidence from research studies indicate that there is a growing tendency for caesarean section deliveries especially...