Continuum of maternal health care in India

India accounts for 20% of global preventable pregnancy-related deaths, which can be averted through a proper continuum of care (CoC). The paper aims at identifying the association between previous experiences of child death on the CoC for the recent child. The study is based on DLHS-4 (2012-13), which includes 89,696 women who had delivered at least two births during the last five years. Bivariate and multivariate techniques were used to analyze the data. More than 11% of women who did not experience child loss and about 14% of women with child loss did not receive any of the three services, namely prenatal care, institutional delivery, and postnatal care. About 12% of women with an experience of child loss had completed the entire CoC compared to only 10% of those without child loss. Women who had experienced child loss were more likely to opt for the CoC than women who did not have a previous history of child loss. This reflects that women might have become more conscious and would not want to suffer a child loss again. This paper aims to discern possible solutions such as educating women on the importance of the continuum of care by health workers through increased capacity building, community participation, effective health education and communication, use of mHealth, etc.