Abstract Introduction: India is facing a demographic nightmare in terms of gender imbalance, The worrying fact is the child sex ratio in Nashik district is 890 which is much lower than the national average of 919. This rate of decline is alarming. Though government has implemented PC & PNDT Act to prevent pre-natal sex determination, it seems not to be reflected in practice. Aims & Objectives: To assess the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Gender Preference & Pre-natal sex determination in population visiting ANC OPD in a tertiary care hospital in Nashik district. Materials and Methods: This is a cross sectional prospective study carried out at a tertiary care hospital involving 100 Married women of reproductive age group and have not completed their family visiting ANC OPD. Analysed using SPSS software 20. Results: Out of 100 women, 71% knew about the PC PNDT act but only 38% have knowledge about the sex ratio and 85% of them preferred a male child in their subsequent pregnancy. This study suggest that those who have preferred more males, desired to know the sex of the child during pregnancy 34.20%. This is statistically significant, as well they could induce abortion if by chance they get to know the gender of foetus and it is of opposite sex to what they had desired, it is also statistically significant (0.000238 i.e. p < 0.05 ). Conclusion: The existence of son preference is at an alarming high rate in our society and is the most important – the root cause of imbalanced sex ratio.Thus apart from the legislative measures, people also needs to be educated about the ethical issues related to female foeticide.
Keywords: Attitude; Gender Preference; PC & PNDT Act; Sex Ratio; Female Foeticide.