Socio-Economic Status of Schedule Caste Women Working as TBAs

The World Health Report (WHR) of 2000 puts India on the list of 51 slow developing countries in the World with respect to infant, child and maternal mortality. The report further says that in India, virtually every year five minutes in India, a woman dies due to pregnancy related complications and childbirth and as many as 10 per cent of newborns does not live up to see their fifth birthday. Similarly, over two third of women, close to 75 percent, give birth at home in the rural areas, adding up to around 1,36,000 fatalities a year, one of the highest in the world. Maternal mortality is considered to be the main factor that considerably lowers the life expectancy of women. In India, as per the available statistics, only 9.7 per cent of married rural women have a hospital facility within the village and another 40 percent live more than 10 km away from the hospital.