Influence of Culture on the Usage of Prenatal Heath Care by Mothers in Punjab-Pakistan

Utilization of maternal health care services has always been an area of concern not only by local institute but also international institutes. In our current study we tried to find out the influence of cultural practices and norms on the use of prenatal services by mothers of remote rural areas of Punjab. The target area of this study was Punjab province. Three districts of Punjab were selected for the current study. A sample of 600 mothers was selected having a kid between six months to five years of age. First hand data was collected by face to face interview of the selected mothers. The gathered information was recorded in an interview schedule. After data collection it was coded and fed to the statistical software to get it analyzed. The data shows that joint family system was dominant in rural areas of Punjab with 59.7 percent of the mothers living under this system. There is a strong negative relationship between the influence of cultural practices with the usage of prenatal care ( χ 2 =78.34, γ = -.453). The data reveals that with the increase in the cultural influence the is a decrease in the usage of prenatal care and vice versa.