Adolescence is a critical period of life marked by biological, social and psychological changes for an individual. The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge and practices of adolescent girls pertaining to menstruation in an urban slum. A cross-sectional descriptive study of three months duration (January 2011 to March 2011) was conducted in an urban slum of Mumbai. All adolescent girls from 10-19 years of age, who had attained menarche, attending general out-patient department and STI clinic, were included. The total sample size of the study was 241. After taking the informed consent of the study respondents, participants were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised of eliciting information pertaining to the socio-demographic profile and reproductive health i.e. hygiene during menstrual periods, awareness about HIV/AIDS of the participants. Special care was taken to maintain privacy and confidentiality. Data entry and statistical analysis were done using SPSS version 17. Frequency distributions were calculated for all the variables and chi-square test was used to study the association between socio-demographic parameters and knowledge and practices about menstruation. It was observed that 79(32.8%) subjects had unsatisfactory menstrual hygienic practices. Even though 66% of adolescent girls were aware about the different modes of transmission of HIV, only 19% knew about safe sexual practices. Education status and late adolescent age group (15-19 years) had a statistically significantly association with adolescent girls knowledge about menstruation. Good/fair knowledge and education status was found to be significantly associated with good practices during menstruation. Study findings have revealed that education status of the adolescent girls was the most important determinant for having good menstrual knowledge. Also significant association was observed between education level and healthy menstrual practices. Thus steps should be taken to improve the literacy status of the adolescent girls for bringing about further improvements in the menstrual hygiene related knowledge and practices.
Menstruation ; Hygiene ; Adolescent ; Reproductive Health ; Poverty Areas ; India

India is home to large number of under-five deaths and underweight children in the world which is mainly because of improper breastfeeding practices. Hence the study was conducted to assess the breastfeeding practices in tribal settings so that proper interventions can be planned by the health system staff to reduce infant morbidity and mortality. Cross-sectional study of three months duration from June 2011 to August 2011was conducted in tribal area of Khardi in Thane district amongst women who had delivered within one year of the study. This study was conducted in Khardi Primary Health Centre (PHC) which comprises of eight sub-centres. Five sub-centres among these eight sub-centres were selected randomly using lottery method. All tribal women, with infants between six months to twelve months of age, registered with these five sub-centres during their antenatal period were included as subjects. 153 such women were identified using universal sampling with the help of Auxillary Nurse Midwives (ANM) and Anganwadi Workers (AWW). 21 women were excluded due to non availability. House to house visits were paid to these subjects & they were then interviewed face to face using a questionnaire after taking their informed consent. Dependent variable was breastfeeding practices including exclusive breastfeeding and independent variables were all the socio-demographic factors influencing breastfeeding. Analysis was done with SPSS version 16. More than half (67.4%) infants were exclusively breast fed (EBF) up to six months of age. Pre-lacteal feeds were given to 23.5% infants while colostrum was not given to 15.2% infants. Practice of EBF was found to be significantly associated with advice regarding EBF during antenatal period, education status, parity of mother and sex of child. 67.4% of the infants were exclusively breastfed till six months of age. Religion, education of the mother, number of children of study subjects, sex of the baby and knowledge about EBF was found to be significantly associated with exclusive breastfeeding.
Breast Feeding ; Colostrum ; India