Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
In India in 2000 between 115000 and 170000 women died in childbirth-about one-quarter of all maternal deaths worldwide. Far from declining over the 1990s maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality rates in India have at best plateaued at worst increased. Regional class and caste inequalities remain far too high. The Millennium Development Goal for the reduction of maternal mortality means that by 2015 the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) should be reduced to about 100 maternal deaths per 100000 live births. Yet governmental action to deal with this scandalous state of affairs seems to be stymied by a lack of political will no new ideas a preoccupation with population control and an apparent lack of awareness of some of the key issues. A workshop in New Delhi in February 2006 considered whether small-scale studies could contribute new insights that might lead to policy proposals. Small-scale meant studies smaller than the nationally representative surveys that generate estimates of rates and relationships at all-India levels. Small-scale studies have different purposes: to elucidate contexts and processes to investigate peoples own understandings and to help explain patterns picked up by large-scale studies. The workshop papers included studies of a single district (Dharmapuri) survey and interview data from sub-district levels (blocks or talukas within Vadodara Diamond Harbour and Koppal) as well as ethnographic studies of villages slums and hospitals in Delhi Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh Jharkhand and West Bengal. (excerpt)
Jeffery et al. (Fri,) studied this question.