Background: Acute respiratory infections (ARI) and Malnutrition in children have tremendous burden on the health care sector of developing nations including India. The intensity with which these conditions are holding grip in the community is indeed a matter of concern and hence developing nations should develop an insight to assess the severity of it has become a necessity.Methods: A hospital based cross sectional study was carried out in children aged 0-14 years. Children were clinically assessed and diagnosis was made as URTI or LRTI Also anthropometry was performed and accordingly children were divided into categories of no malnutrition (NM), severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) in ‘under 5’ years age children according to WHO guidelines, whereas children aged ‘above 5’ years were categorized as per the IAP guidelines.Results: It was observed that most of the mothers of children were illiterate with inadequate or absent ventilation and use of biomass fuels (chulha) for cooking purpose in households of rural children. The proportion of malnutrition was found to be equal in Under 5 children. In ‘above 5 years’ age study subjects, 52.4% of urban study subjects were normal as compared to 16.7% of rural study subjects.Conclusions: Our study implies that ARI and Malnutrition definitely is more prevalent in the pediatric population. Prevalence of URTI was found to be on a higher side in the rural population and LRTI prevalence was found to be higher in the urban population. Similarly, the prevalence of malnutrition was almost similar in ‘Under 5’ aged children, whereas the prevalence of malnutrition in ‘Above 5’ aged children was higher in the rural population than urban population.

Background: To compare maternal and fetal outcome with intracervical foley’s catheter and intracervical PGE2 gel on pre-induction cervical ripening for induction of labor. Methods: A Prospective Longitudinal study was carried out in antenatal cases beyond 37 weeks at tertiary care hospital, maharashtra. Pertinent data was collected and analyzed. Results: 50% patients were induced with PGE2 Gel (Group 1) and 50% patients were induced with Foley’s catheter (Group 2). The mean time interval between time of induction and delivery was 14.63±3.42 hours in Group 1 and 15.73±2.20 hours in Group 2. 52 (69.4%) patients in Group 1 had Full Term Normal Delivery (FTND) while 21 (28%) had Lower Segment Caesarean Section (LSCS). 73 (97.4%) patients in Group 2 had FTND while 1 (1.3%) patient had LSCS. The preinduction and postinduction bishops score between the groups was (3.53±0.84 vs. 3.44±0.74) and (6.91±1.24 vs. 7.33±0.83) respectively. Conclusion: Induction with foley’s catheter has significant improvement in Bishop’s score and shorter induction delivery interval as compared to PGE2 gel. Foleys catheter is advantageous as it lacks specific storage condition. It could be considered a cost effective alternative for pre induction cervical ripening.