Bypassing health facilities for childbirth in the context of the JSY cash transfer program to promote institutional birth: A cross-sectional study from Madhya Pradesh, India

Bypassing health facilities for childbirth can be costly both for women and health systems. There have been some reports on this from Sub-Saharan African and from Nepal but none from India. India has implemented the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), a large national conditional cash transfer program which has successfully increased the number of institutional births in India. This paper aims to study the extent of bypassing the nearest health facility offering intrapartum care in three districts of Madhya Pradesh, India, and to identify individual and facility determinants of bypassing in the context of the JSY program. Our results provide information to support the optimal utilization of facilities at different levels of the healthcare system for childbirth. Data was collected from 96 facilities (74 public) and 720 rural mothers who delivered at these facilities were interviewed. Multilevel logistic regression was used to analyze the data. Facility obstetric care functionality was assessed by the number of emergency obstetric care (EmOC) signal functions performed in the last three months. Thirty eighth percent of the mothers bypassed the nearest public facility for their current delivery. Primiparity, higher education, arriving by hired transport and a longer distance from home to the nearest facility increased the odds of bypassing a public facility for childbirth. The variance partition coefficient showed that 37% of the variation in bypassing the nearest public facility can be attributed to difference between facilities. The number of basic emergency obstetric care signal functions (AOR = 0.59, 95% CI 0.37–0.93), and the availability of free transportation at the nearest facility (AOR = 0.11, 95% CI 0.03–0.31) were protective factors against bypassing. The variation between facilities (MOR = 3.85) was more important than an individual’s characteristics to explain bypassing in MP. This multilevel study indicates that in this setting, a focus on increasing the level of emergency obstetric care functionality in public obstetric care facilities will allow more optimal utilization of facilities for childbirth under the JSY program thereby leading to better outcomes for mothers.