Page 42 - IJPS-2-2

Infant mortality differentials among the tribal and non-tribal populations of Central and Eastern India

state of Madhya Pradesh in comparison to those born in Jharkhand. Infants born to rural women had
29% (p < 0.05) higher risk of death compared to infants born to urban women. Infants born to rich
families had 30% (p < 0.01) lower risk of death in comparison to those born in poor families.
No significant association between place of pregnancy registration and infant mortality was found
in either tribal populations or non-tribal populations.

4. Discussion
In most states in India, tribal populations are isolated, concentrated in certain regions, and live in
hilly and forested areas that make communication and access to services difficult even in nor-
mal circumstances. These tribal populations have higher infant mortality than non-tribal populations.
However, systematic examinations of factors associated with infant mortality between these two
populations are rare. By using the dataset of the DLHS-III in 2007–2008, the present study examined
the infant mortality gap between tribal and non-tribal populations and factors associated with infant
mortality for both tribal and non-tribal populations that include characteristics of house-
holds/communities, mothers, and infants. We found that the difference in infant mortality between
tribal and non-tribal populations was substantial in the early months after birth, it narrowed between
the fourth and eighth months, and then enlarged mildly afterwards. Our results were contradictory to
one previous study focusing on nationwide data which found that STs and non-STs’ probabilities of
survival did not differ significantly during the first year, but during the second year the gap between
the adivasi and non-adivasi children’s chances of dying widens and becomes statistically significant
(Das, Kapoor and Nikitin, 2010). The different mortality in the first year of life in the present study
is possibly due to inaccessibility or unavailability of postnatal care services because these states have
low levels of socioeconomic development. We welcome more research to shed light on the theme.
Our Cox regression models show that while some factors are associated with infant mortality si-
milarly among tribes and non-tribes, distinctive associations between tribal and non-tribal popula-
tions were striking. Sex of infants, breastfeeding with colostrum, and age of mother at birth acted
similarly between tribes and non-tribes, yet factors such as state of residence, wealth of household,
religion, place of residence, mother’s education, and birth order of the infant behaved differently. No
significant association between place of pregnancy registration and infant mortality was found in
either tribes or non-tribes.
Female genes are found to be comparatively biologically stronger than male genes. Hence, female
infants face a lower risk of death after birth in comparison to male infants for both groups. In com-
parison with the women younger than 25 years, increase in the age of mother till 34 years of age de-
creases the risk of infant death both for tribes as well as non-tribes. Some previous studies also
reached a similar conclusion regarding the association between mother’s age at birth and mortality
risk of infants (Gunasekaran, 2008; Singh, Kumar, and Kumar, 2013).
A significant linkage between breastfeeding with colostrum and infant survival for both tribal and
non-tribal populations was observed in our study. Breastfeeding is a behavioral as well as biological
factor, and a mother usually practices it irrespective of caste, race, or culture. The behavioral practice
of exclusive breastfeeding exists in almost every culture, but may vary in degree which may affect
a child’s survival. Many previous studies in India and South Asian countries have indicated that
women commonly wait several days after birth to initiate breastfeeding to avoid giving colostrum
(Baqui, Williams, Darmstadt et al., 2007; Engle, 2002; Huffman, Zehner, Victora et al., 2001; Macro
and IIPS, 2000; Rahi, Taneja, Misra et al., 2006). Most tribal women do not initiate breastfeeding
within the first hour of birth and few of them squeeze out the first milk before initiation of breast-
feeding. Some tribe-specific studies have also reported that most babies do not receive mothers’ milk
in the first two or three days (Baqui, Williams, Darmstadt et al., 2007; Engle, 2002; Huffman,
Zehner, and Victora, 2001).

36 International Journal of Population Studies | 2016, Volume 2, Issue 2