BACKGROUND The huge proportion of child marriage contributes to high rates of pregnancies among adolescent girls in Bangladesh. Despite substantial progress in reducing maternal mortality in the last two decades, the rate of adolescent pregnancy remains high. The use of skilled maternal health services is still low in Bangladesh. Several quantitative studies described the use of skilled materna...

BACKGROUND Prenatal and postnatal visits are two effective interventions for protection and promotion of maternal health by reducing maternal mortality and improving the quality of birth. There is limited nationally representative data regarding the changes of prenatal and postnatal visits since the latest health system reform initiated in 2009 in Shaanxi, China. The aim of this study was to ex...

BACKGROUND The International Conference on Population Development held in Cairo in 1994 identified the importance of male involvement in reproductive health programs. Since then, there has been an increase in reproductive health initiatives that target both men and women in an attempt to fulfill the 5th Millenium Development Goal. Yet, while the benefits of male involvement have been acknowledg...

It is widely understood that maternal health care relies on the entire health system. However, little empirical, country-specific, research has been done to trace out the ways in which health system elements can shape maternal health outcomes. This study seeks to redress this situation, by providing an example of how a health systems approach can benefit the understanding of maternal health ser...

agenda-setting is a crucial step for inclusive health policies in the low- and middle-income countries (lmics). enlightened by ha et al manuscript, this commentary paper argues that ‘political impetus’ is the key to the successful agenda-setting of health policies in lmics, though other determinants may also play the role during the process. this vietnamese case study presents a good example fo...

objective: to understand the knowledge and services of informal providers and to explore their role in addressing the human resource gap in uttar pradesh, india, within the context of maternal health. materials and methods: the study is exploratory in nature, conducted in four blocks of four districts of uttar pradesh state, india. semi-structured interviews were conducted with 114 informal pro...

in 17 hospitals, 13123 new births were born during 1989 in tehran. some well-trained personnel observed the events, filling the required questionnaires, interviewing, and collecting necessary information. among them 730 newborns was low birth weight (less than 2500 grams) which was considered as cases. immediately after each case was born, two normal newborn were randomly selected as controls. ...

background although iranian women increasingly attend hospitals for childbirth, no information is available on programs and practices related to infection control in labor and delivery units. conclusions the results of this study revealed a need for development of appropriate policies and protocols for infection control practices in labor and delivery units and also midwives training on clean d...

background a number of developing countries have contracted out public health facilities to the non-government organizations (ngos) in order to improve service utilization. however, there is a paucity of in-depth qualitative information on barriers to access services as a result of contracting from service users’ perspective. the objective of this study was to explore perceived barriers to util...

Despite evidence that social contexts are key determinants of health, research into factors associated with maternal health service utilization in Ethiopia has often focused on individual and household factors. The downside is that this underestimates the importance of taking contextual factors into account when planning appropriate interventions in promoting safe motherhood in the country. The...