Male Involvement in Maternal Healthcare (MHC) Services: A Religious Differential Approach

The whole world is trying to achieve the third United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal (improve maternal health) by combating maternal mortality and infant mortality, which are severe global problems in underdeveloped and developing countries and may cause the improper utilization of maternal healthcare services. The proper utilization of maternal healthcare (MHC) services helps to reduce delivery complications and the risk of maternal and infant death. Male involvement (the involvement of the male spouse of a woman) is one of the essential factors in the utilization of maternal healthcare services. The present study attempts to show the degree of male involvement and the controlling factors for male participation among the Muslim women of the Maldah district in West Bengal. This study was carried out by using the primary data collected from 816 Muslim spouses from families where the women had at least one live birth within the past 5 years of beginning the survey. Bivariate (chi-square analysis) and multivariate analysis (binary logistic regression analysis) were used to show the results. The results show that the involvement of spouses in the utilization of MHC services is negligible; nearly 33% and about 20% of spouses go to health facilities with their pregnant partners for antenatal care (ANC) and postnatal care (PNC), respectively. About 20% of spouses know the importance of MHC services for mothers and newborns. The involvement of men is conditioned by their education, age at marriage, occupation, place of residence, standard of living and mass-media exposure. The chi-square analysis shows a significant association between various sociodemographic factors and male involvement in the utilization of MHC services, and the results of the binary logistic regression analysis show significant differences in the likelihood of participation among spouses depending on their sociodemographic characteristics.