Reproductive morbidity among the rural women in Maharashtra

Saurabh Singh, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Vijaylakshmi Singh, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Shrikant Singh, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

The reproductive health status is not only a major component of womens overall health but signifies the individual and societal well being. Ironically this important indicator is at stake in most developing countries including India. In this backdrop the present paper attempts to observe the prevalence, perception and treatment seeking behaviour of reproductive health problems among rural women in Maharashtra, one of the developed states in India. The data used for this paper is obtained from ICMR-IIPS project based on7200 rural women from randomly selected four districts (Nagpur, Thane, Jalgaon, and Kolhapur) of Maharashtra. The primary analysis reveals that almost three fifth of the women in rural Maharashtra suffer with one or the other reproductive health problems. A relatively higher prevalence of RTI/STDs demands for concentrated programmatic efforts in view of HIV epidemic in the state. The perception level of women’s in rural Maharashtra towards the reproductive morbidity is a matter of great concern and requires an immediate attention because from the analysis nearly three fifths of women perceives reproductive morbidity as a normal process, one fifth of women are not sure remaining one fourth consider reproductive morbidity as a infection (disease). This will definitely become a burning issue and a matter of discussion among the policy makers. Also there is a need to develop interpersonal communication among the womens in Maharashtra. Further more then fifty percent are not seeking treatment which indicates wide gap in the reproductive Health management. KEY WORDS: Menstrual problem, Reproductive tract infection, HIV/AIDS, Reproductive Health