TY - JOUR
T1 - Moving targets
T2 - Routine IUD insertion in maternity wards in Tamil Nadu, India
AU - Van Hollen, Cecilia
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was part of a larger study for my PhD dissertation, entitled ‘Birthing on the threshold: chiJdbirth and modernity among lower-class women in TamiJ Nadu, South India’. Many thanks to the US Fulbright-Hayes Foundation for funding this project. The 1997 follow-up was partially funded by a Lowie Grant from the Department of Anthropology, University of California-Berkeley, USA. 1 am indebted to Annette Mathews, Haripriya Narasimhan, Rajeswari Prabhakaran and Kaushalya Hart for their help on translation. 1 am grateful to all the women in TamiJ Nadu who participated in the research, particularly to the Working Women’s Forum in Madras for ongoing supper?. Lawrence Cohen and Nancy Scheper-Hughes made many insightil comments.
PY - 1998/5
Y1 - 1998/5
N2 - In 1995, nurses and doctors in many of the public maternity wards in the state of Tamil Nadu in India were routinely inserting IUDs immediately following childbirth and abortions, as part of the target-orientated family planning policy. This practice, sometimes carried out unbeknownst to women or against their will, has received little public attention. Tamil Nadu's success in reaching state targets for IUD acceptance far exceeded those of all other states and territories in India. This paper reports on an ethnographic study in 1995 of Tamil Nadu women's experience of routine IUD insertion and why health workers considered the policy necessary. Based on information from a follow-up visit in 1997, it describes how the change in national and state policy in 1996 to a target-free approach, with local determination of needs, is being implemented, but only in some hospitals and by some health workers. Reproductive health policy in India has been dominated by family planning and driven by numerical targets for a long time; it will take more time to assess the effects of the new policy.
AB - In 1995, nurses and doctors in many of the public maternity wards in the state of Tamil Nadu in India were routinely inserting IUDs immediately following childbirth and abortions, as part of the target-orientated family planning policy. This practice, sometimes carried out unbeknownst to women or against their will, has received little public attention. Tamil Nadu's success in reaching state targets for IUD acceptance far exceeded those of all other states and territories in India. This paper reports on an ethnographic study in 1995 of Tamil Nadu women's experience of routine IUD insertion and why health workers considered the policy necessary. Based on information from a follow-up visit in 1997, it describes how the change in national and state policy in 1996 to a target-free approach, with local determination of needs, is being implemented, but only in some hospitals and by some health workers. Reproductive health policy in India has been dominated by family planning and driven by numerical targets for a long time; it will take more time to assess the effects of the new policy.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0968-8080(98)90086-6
DO - 10.1016/S0968-8080(98)90086-6
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0032468617
SN - 0968-8080
VL - 6
SP - 98
EP - 106
JO - Reproductive Health Matters
JF - Reproductive Health Matters
IS - 11
ER -