Back to browse results
Utilization of Maternal Health Care Services in Bangladesh: Evidence from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2000-2004
Authors: Mosiur Rahman, Golam Mostafa, and Nurul Islam
Source: Middle East Journal of Family Medicine, vol. 6, no. 4, pages 9-16
Topic(s): Health care utilization
Maternal health
Country: Asia
  Bangladesh
Published: JUL 2008
Abstract: Maternal health, especially in the pregnancy period, is a worthy research topic. Less developed countries like Bangladesh give little attention to the utilization of mother’s health care services. This study investigates the utilization of maternal and child health 1990-1999 and 2000-2004. The analysis reveals that a vast majority of women do not take any care (i.e., antenatal. Natal and postnatal care services) and of those women who take antenatal care most of them received care from doctors and the same result is obtained for the time span 1990-1999 and 2000-2004. Well-trained personnel can reduce mother and child mortality at the time of the delivery. This study also found that very few women is Bangladesh are found to receive delivery assistance from medically trained personnel and most of them took assistance from untrained persons. It is also observed from the study that around nineteen percent of mother’s place of delivery is their own homes or other homes and only a few of them were found to go to the government or private hospital for delivery cases. This study also elucidates that only 12 percent of babies receive a postnatal checkup by trained health providers within the first two days of delivery. Although it is found that in the time span 1990-1999 and 2000-2004 a vast portion of the children aged 12-23 months receive all the recommended vaccination before their first birthday but still many of them did not receive the recommended vaccination.