Malnutrition and infant and young child feeding in informal settlements in Mumbai, India: findings from a census.

Childhood malnutrition remains common in India. We visited families in 40 urban informal settlement areas in Mumbai to document stunting, wasting, and overweight in children under five, and to examine infant and young child feeding (IYCF) in children under 2 years. We administered questions on eight core WHO IYCF indicators and on sugary and savory snack foods, and measured weight and height of children under five.

Community resource centres to improve the health of women and children in Mumbai slums: study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial.

Background: The trial addresses the general question of whether community resource centers run by a non-government organization improve the health of women and children in slums. The resource centers will be run by the Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action, and the trial will evaluate their effects on a series of public health indicators. Each resource center will be located in a vulnerable Mumbai slum area and will serve as a base for salaried community workers, supervised by officers and coordinators, to organize the collection and dissemination of health information, provision of services, home visits to identify and counsel families at risk, referral of individuals and families to appropriate services and support for their access, meetings of community members and providers, and events and campaigns on health issues.

Nutritional status of young children in Mumbai slums: a follow-up anthropometric study.

Background: Chronic childhood malnutrition remains common in India. As part of an initiative to improve maternal and child health in urban slums, we collected anthropometric data from a sample of children followed up from birth. We described the proportions of underweight, stunting, and wasting in young children, and examined their relationships with age.

Community mobilization in Mumbai slums to improve perinatal care and outcomes: a cluster randomized controlled trial.

Introduction: Improving maternal and newborn health in low-income settings requires both health service and community action. Previous community initiatives have been predominantly rural, but India is urbanizing. While working to improve health service quality, we tested an intervention in which urban slum-dweller women's groups worked to improve local perinatal health.

Stillbirths and newborn deaths in slum settlements in Mumbai, India: a prospective verbal autopsy study.

Background: Three million babies are stillborn each year and 3.6 million die in the first month of life. In India, early neonatal deaths make up four-fifths of neonatal deaths and infant mortality three-quarters of under-five mortality.

Prospective study of determinants and costs of home births in Mumbai slums.

Background: Around 86% of births in Mumbai, India, occur in healthcare institutions, but this aggregate figure hides substantial variation and little is known about urban home births. We aimed to explore factors influencing the choice of home delivery, care practices and costs, and to identify characteristics of women, households and the environment which might increase the likelihood of home birth.

Methods: As part of the City Initiative for Newborn Health, we used a key informant surveillance system to identify births prospectively in 48 slum communities in six wards of Mumbai, covering a population of 280,000.

Tracing pathways from antenatal to delivery care for women in Mumbai, India: cross-sectional study of maternity in low-income areas.

In many cities, healthcare is available through a complex mix of private and public providers. The line between the formal and informal sectors may be blurred and movement between them uncharted. We quantified the use of private and public providers of maternity care in low-income areas of Mumbai, India.

Conflict, crisis, and abuse in Dharavi, Mumbai: experiences from six years at a centre for vulnerable women and children.

Nayreen Daruwalla and colleagues describe the Centre for Vulnerable Women and Children, which serves clients coping with crisis and violence in the urban setting of Dharavi, Mumbai.

Cluster-randomised controlled trial of community mobilisation in Mumbai slums to improve care during pregnancy, delivery, postpartum and for the newborn.

Background: The United Nations Millennium Development Goals look to substantial improvements in child and maternal survival. Morbidity and mortality during pregnancy, delivery and the postnatal period are prime obstacles to achieving these goals. Given the increasing importance of urban health to global prospects, Mumbai's City Initiative for Newborn Health aims to improve maternal and neonatal health in vulnerable urban slum communities, through a combination of health service quality improvement and community participation.