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Objective

To investigate coverage and equity of India’s Integrated Child Development Services programme across the continuum of care from pregnancy to early childhood, before and after the programme was expanded to provide universal access.

Methods

The programme offers nutrition and health services to pregnant and lactating mothers and young children. We used data from nationally representative surveys in 2005–2006 and 2015–2016, including 36 850 mother–child pairs in 2006 and 190 804 in 2016. We assessed changes in the equity of use of programme services by socioeconomic quintile, caste, education and rural or urban residence. We used regression models to investigate the determinants of programme use.