Birthing practices of traditional birth attendants in South Asia in the context of training programmes

Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) training has been an important component of public health policy interventions to improve maternal and child health in developing countries since the 1970s. More recently, since the 1990s, the TBA training strategy has been increasingly seen as irrelevant, ineffective or, on the whole, a failure due to evidence that the maternal mortality rate (MMR) in developing countries had not reduced. Although, worldwide data show that, by choice or out of necessity, 47 percent of births in the developing world are assisted by TBAs and/or family members, funding for TBA training has been reduced and moved to providing skilled birth attendants for all births. Any shift in policy needs to be supported by appropriate evidence on TBA roles in providing maternal and infant health care service and effectiveness of the training programmes. This article reviews literature on the characteristics and role of TBAs in South Asia with an emphasis on India. The aim was to assess the contribution of TBAs in providing maternal and infant health care service at different stages of pregnancy and after-delivery and birthing practices adopted in home births. The review of role revealed that apart from TBAs, there are various other people in the community also involved in making decisions about the welfare and health of the birthing mother and new born baby. However, TBAs have changing, localised but nonetheless significant roles in delivery, postnatal and infant care in India. Certain traditional birthing practices such as bathing babies immediately after birth, not weighing babies after birth and not feeding with colostrum are adopted in home births as well as health institutions in India. There is therefore a thin precarious balance between the application of biomedical and traditional knowledge. Customary rituals and perceptions essentially affect practices in home and institutional births and hence training of TBAs need to be implemented in conjunction with community awareness programmes

Correlates of opium use: retrospective analysis of a survey of tribal communities in Arunachal Pradesh, India

BACKGROUND: Household survey data of Changlang district, Arunachal Pradesh, were used in the present study to assess the prevalence of opium use among different tribes, and to examine the association between sociodemographic factors and opium use. METHODS: A sample of 3421 individuals (1795 men and 1626 women) aged 15 years and older was analyzed using a multivariate logistic regression model to determine factors associated with opium use. Sociodemographic information such as age, education, occupation, religion, ethnicity and marital status were included in the analysis. RESULTS: The prevalence of opium use was significantly higher (10.6%) among men than among women (2.1%). It varied according to age, educational level, occupation, marital status and religion of the respondents. In both sexes, opium use was significantly higher among Singpho and Khamti tribes compared with other tribes. Multivariate logistic regression indicated that opium use was significantly associated with age, occupation, ethnicity, religion and marital status of the respondents of both sexes. Multivariate rate ratios (MRR) for opium use were significantly higher (4–6 times) among older age groups (≥35 years) and male respondents. In males, the MRR was also significantly higher in respondents of Buddhist and Indigenous religion, while in females, the MRR was significantly higher in Buddhists. Most of the female opium users had taken opium for more than 5 years and were introduced to it by their husbands after marriage. Use of other substances among opium users comprised mainly tobacco (76%) and alcohol (44%). CONCLUSIONS: The study reveals the sociodemographic factors, such as age, sex, ethnicity, religion and occupation, which are associated with opium use. Such information is useful for institution of intervention measures to reduce opium use

Open Access Article│www.njcmindia.org pISSN 0976 3325│eISSN 2229 6816

ABSTRACT Background: Emergency contraception is used to prevent pregnancy within 72 hours of unprotected sexual intercourse. Emergency contraceptive pills (ECP) can reduce unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortions. This study was carried out among college students to assess knowledge and attitude practices regarding emergency contraceptive pills

Detection mechanism of Metal Oxide Gas Sensor under UV Radiation.

The effect of ultraviolet radiation on the sensing mechanism of polycrystalline metal oxide gas sensor has been studied analytically. The model used to describe the sensing mechanism is based on the combination of the neck mechanism and grain boundary mechanism. We found that increasing the UV radiation flux density increases the conductivity of the film by decreasing the resistance. It has been shown theoretically that due to incident UV radiation, it is possible to detect the gas even at room temperature. The effect of radiation on the sensitivity is discussed as a function of grain size and chemisorbed gas concentration

Alcohol sensing of tin oxide thin film prepared by sol-gel process

The present paper describes the alcohol sensing characteristics of spin coated SnO2 thin film deposited by using sol–gel process. The sensitivity of the film was measured at different temperatures and different concentrations of alcohol at ppm level. Alcohol detection result shows peak sensitivity at 623 K. The variation of sensitivity and ethanol concentration has shown a linear relationship up to 1150 ppm and after that it saturates. The response time measurement of the sensor was also observed and it was found that the response time is 30 sec. The results obtained favour the sol–gel process as a low cost method for the preparation of thin films with a high sensing characteristi

Design of a patterned substrate for gas sensor applications

Gas sensors based on semiconducting oxides can be used for the detection of combustible and noxious gases in air. Their advantages are high sensitivity, simple design, low weight and cost. The basic design of a gas sensorconsists of two essential parts, viz. active layer and a contact array through which the active material can be interrogated. There has been a lot of progress and work was done in the deposition of sensitive active layer by several researchers. However the design of a substrate is equally important and will continue to play an important role on the performance of the sensor .The substrate design, design of the mask, and proposed in-house work are described

Effect of Calcination Temperature on Sensitivity of Tin Oxide Thin Film

This paper describes the effect of calcination temperature on the gas sensitive properties of nanocrystalline tin oxide thin film. Nanocrystalline SnO2 thin films were prepared by sol-gel method using inorganic salt as aprecursor material. Influence of calcination temperature was evaluated on the structural morphology and electrical characteristic of the film prepared by spin coating method. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) revealed that with increasing calcination temperature the uniformity of the film increased. X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements showed that the grain size increased from ∼20 to 80 nm as the calcination temperature was increased from 100 to 600"C. In general, the preferred direction of smaller grain size is (110). At lower calcination temperatures, both the SnO2 peak and the SnO peaks were seen on XRD but only SnO2 peaks were observed at higher temperatures. The sensitivity of the tin oxide thin film to 500 ppm of alcohol vapors at the substrate temperature of 350"C was also grain size dependent. The sensitivity increased with decrease in grain size