Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Status among Indigenous People in North-West Bangladesh: A Study in Dinajpur District

Abstract

The present study was conducted among the plain land indigenous families in Dinajpur, the North-west region of Bangladesh to identify the source-demographic and economic condition, health access systems, the maternal morbidity and mortality and its determinants. This study was carried out in the six upazilas namely Dinajpur sadar, Birgang, Nowabganj, Fulbari, Biral and Chirirbandr in the Dinajpur district where most of the indigenous people live. Using appropriate sample size estimating formula, a total of 223currently married women having at least one child of under five years old were interviewed for data collection with simple random sampling method. The collected data were analysed using univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses. This study comes up with the fact that maternal health status of plain land indigenous people in North-west of Bangladesh is also poor as national level of the country compared to desired level. This study shows that more than one-third of women have access to health care services, which can be one of the most important factors in their poor health. In most cases, indigenous women (mothers’) faced common problems during pregnancies like headache, eye vision, cough/fever, excessive vomiting tendency and morning sickness. But major complications of excessive bleeding, obstructive labor, long-term labor, eclampsia, and membrane are also seen as their delivery period because most midwives help with delivery, those who do not have any formal training or education. Practice for delivering care and current use of contraception are also lower among the indigenous mothers. But in case of family planning and contraceptive use indicators these studied statistics (CPR=67. 2) were relatively better than national average. Maternal mortality situations are also not in desired level due to the practice of preservation by traditional midwives. The mothers cannot afford expensive health care and medical facilities due to their poor financial condition and for own cultural heritage. On the other hand, the indigenous society is still passing through adverse situations regarding their socioeconomic condition and standard obstetric care facilities. The factors associated with the use of lower health care and contraceptive use are found that age of respondents, mothers' education, husband's education and occupation, financial condition, distance to the service center and access to mass media are significant. This study recommends that community health centers/ health care in public and private enterprise will have to increase. Government, NGOs, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and other development partners will have to implement various programs and projects.