Deliveries among adolescent mothers in rural Bangladesh: who provides assistance?

OBJECTIVES

This paper sought to identify factors associated with modes of delivery assistance among adolescent mothers in rural Bangladesh.

METHODOLOGY: Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey of 2004 data for the last 5 years (N = 867) were used. Univariate statistical analysis and multivariate logistic regression methods were employed in analyzing the data.

RESULTS

We observed that almost all adolescent deliveries (93.6 %) took place at home, and most (80.1%) were assisted by untrained traditional birth attendants, relatives or neighbours. Only 8.8% were attended by medically trained persons. Main factors affecting delivery practices among adolescents were mass media exposure, parents' education, antenatal care received, type of toilet facilities and visits by family planning workers (FPW), wanted last child and told about pregnancy complications.

CONCLUSIONS

RESULTS indicate several policy options to improve outcomes for adolescent mothers: (a) create awareness of appropriate behaviours during pregnancy, delivery and post-partum period, (b) ensure maternal healthcare centres are available, especially rurally, for antenatal care, expand and improve the quality of home births by trained providers and introduce post-partum visits, (c) increase the number of visits by family welfare visitors/family welfare assistants (FWV/FWA), and (d) emphasize adolescent education to make a lasting impact on the overall health of adolescent mothers.