According to a report published by WHO, more than 303 000 women have died due to the complications caused during pregnancy or childbirth. The sad part is that most of these deaths could have been avoided. But due to lack of the necessary medical facilities and proper interventions, led to these deaths. Pregnant women’s lack of access to quality care before, during, and after childbirth has become a key obstacle. Millennium Development Goal was proposed to improve maternal health. It also set the targets in order to reduce maternal mortality by 75% and achieving universal access to reproductive health by as early as 2015. But sadly the goals of MDG were not met. In developing countries, progress has been almost nonexistent. They even failed to provide basic services like contraceptive services. Sustainable Development Goals offered a new opportunity for the improvements to happen in maternal health for all women, in all countries, under all circumstances.
In India also, programs such as the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), have helped to reduce the Maternal Mortality Ratio and a noticeable improvement has been made in maternal health care services. But still, India is lagging behind the millennium development goal that aims to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by 2015. A substantial inequality exists at many levels such as regional, geographic, economic, and social levels. Various socioeconomic factors have contributed to a significantly large share in inequality in the utilization of maternal health care in India. Problems like nutrition continue to have an adverse effect on the majority of women in India. An undernourished mother gives birth to a weak baby. Also owing to the economic and social distress, women have to work to earn a living for their family till the last days of their pregnancy causing anemia.
In order to solve these problems, there is a need for the spread of awareness regarding maternal health care schemes which have been applied in the rural parts of the country. Schemes related to maternal and child care that falls under NRHM should be continued it must be focused on the lower socioeconomic groups and marginalized mothers who have a reduced maternal health services inequality.