In less developed countries like Pakistan, where a large portion of the population lives in rural areas, this provides strong evidence that maternal health is strongly correlated with population health. In the study, there was an identification of the awareness and use of the maternal health services of 400 rural South Punjabi women with respect to the antenatal care (ANC) and skilled birth attendance (SBA) and postnatal care (PNC). The data were collected in structured questionnaires with interpretation of the data done through descriptive statistics, binary logistic regression and Pearson correlation analysis. It was found that 70 percent of the women were familiar with ANC services, 60 with SBA and 50 with PNC services. The rates of penetration were also low as 65 percent used ANC, 57.5 percent used SBA and (45) percent used PNC. Those factors that were identified as significant predictors of service utilization were education (OR = 3.06, p = 0.001), and household income (OR = 2.34, p = 0.002), occupation (OR = 2.12, p = 0.027), and proximity to health facilities (OR = 2.74, p = 0.001). The largest of them were financial constraints (Mean = 4.25 ± 0.82), cultural norms (Mean = 4.00 ± 0.87) and structural constraints in the form of long distances to health facilities (Mean = 4.20 ± 0.85). Pearson correlation analysis showed that there was a positive strong correlation between the awareness and utilization (r = 0.62, p < 0.001). Such findings highlight the importance of specific awareness interventions, funding, gender empowerment, and an increased access to healthcare services in improving the maternal health in South Punjab rural.

Article Information

Received Date: 0000-00-00

Revised Date: 0000-00-00

Accepted Date: 0000-00-00

Available online: 0000-00-00

Authors Contribution: -

KeyWords: Maternal health, Awareness, Utilization, Rural women, Antenatal care, Skilled birth attendance, Postnatal care, Barriers.

DOI: -

*Corresponding author: fn.146@yahoo.com

Copyright 2012 SASI

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