Vasuki is pregnant woman from sellur area. She is born and brought up in Madurai and got married to Muthu Sadaiyandi of Theni. Theni is a neighboring district of Madurai. Her husband is a driver. As his income is very less, he got his family settled in Madurai at sellur. She had given birth to a male child ten months back. When her menstrual cycle periods got skipped she never thought it as pregnancy and assumed it as irregular periods due to her breast feeding practices. When she visited the PHC (Primary Health Centre) it was diagnosed as pregnancy on her sixth month. However due to her preoccupation in caring the first child she never visited the health centre for follow-up on the seventh month.
Through the PHC-Nurse the health associate Ms. Jeyashankari of the Sellur Vattra Kalanjiam came to know about the pregnant woman. During her field follow-up she met Vasuki and found that she is not keen for regular health checkups and had not taken the folic acid tablets and the vaccination. The health associate visited her often and briefed her about the anemic impact of the child at birth the necessity for taking the folic acid tablets and the vaccination. After her persistent visits Vasuki visited the PHC took vaccination and started taking folic acid tablets. She started taking iron rich food contents as told by the health associate. After three months she got a boy weighting 3.100 Kgs delivered by cesarean. She has undergone tubectomy and is happy that her second child is healthy due to the timely intervention of the health associate.
The services of health associates engaged by DHAN in the WSI initiative has so far identified 236 pregnant women in the working community of the Madurai urban and they are being monitored for ensuring safe and healthy institutional deliveries. Creating awareness on health issues and encouraging the poor household to access the services established by the government. The access to these health services not only reduces the health expenses of poor families in general but also ensures that the next generation deliveries are normal and safe from birth defects arising out of inaccessibility of health services due to lack of awareness.
