INTRODUCTION:Mothers and children constitute the major proportion of our population. At the same time these two groups are very vulnerable and require special attention in health care. 1 In spite of progress in health care delivery, there are variations in utilization of the health services in urban slums, rural and tribal areas. Therefore in this context, an attempt was made to compare the health care practices of mothers in tribal area and urban slums. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study is a community based cross sectional study conducted among mothers with living infants residing in tribal area and urban slums. After the survey and collection, from 606 mothers, comprising 305 from tribal area and 301 from urban slums through self administered questionnaire which covered socio-demographic profile, antenatal care, postnatal care and family planning methods, the data was analyzed using SPSS, 12. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: In urban slums 42% of women are approaching private practitioners for antenatal care whereas 87% of tribal women are depending on government health centers for antenatal care. With regards to intranatal care, 70% of women in tribal areas delivered at their homes where as 80% of deliveries in urban slums were also home deliveries. Spacing is less than a year in 61% of tribal and 37% of urban population. The antenatal care is being provided mainly by private institutions and government hospitals in urban areas. In tribal areas women are approaching health centers for antenatal care. Most of the deliveries in the study population are home deliveries . Utilization of family planning services is very low in both the groups.

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Background: Menarche is an important biological milestone in a woman’s life as it marks the onset of the reproductive phase of her life. The average age at menarche is mostly consistent across the populations, that is, between 12 and 13 years of age. Unfortunately, due to lack of knowledge on menstruation preparedness and management or due to shyness and embarrassment the situation becomes worse for girl. Menstruation is a natural process but it is still a taboo in Indian society as it is considered unclean and dirty.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 250 tribal adolescents in Visakhapatnam district, A. P.Results: 90% of adolescent girls know that menstruation is a normal process. Only 63.2% of adolescent girls know the correct duration of menstrual cycle. 95.6% of adolescent girls use sanitary pads. 97.2% of adolescent girl’s clean external genitalia before changing pad. 84% of adolescent girls can be able to change pad in school whenever necessary.Conclusions: The practices of menstrual hygiene were good except regarding disposal of menstrual materials but need improvement regarding knowledge about menstrual hygiene. It is very important that the mother to be armed with the correct and appropriate information on reproductive health, so that she can pass this knowledge to her next generation.