OBJECTIVE To study maternal risk factors associated with full term low birth weight (LBW) neonates. DESIGN Matched pair case control study. SETTING Multicenter study including 2 medical colleges and 1 civil hospital, between July 2009 to December 2009. PATIENTS Of 2382 neonates screened, 274 full term LBW babies (of 638) and 274 pair matched controls (of 1744) were included in the study. ...

BACKGROUND Fertility is high in Nigeria and contraceptive use is low. Little is known about how urban Nigerians perceive the risk of contraceptive use in relation to pregnancy and birth. This study examines and compares the risk perception of family planning methods and pregnancy related scenarios among urban Nigerians. METHODS A total of 26 focus group discussions with 243 participants were ...

This study was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of Cooperative Agreement Number HRN-A-00-98-00012-00, Subagreement AI05.38A and In-house project 5800 53094. The contents are the responsibility of FRONTIERS and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Gover...

Studies examining the influence of community-level interactions and contextual/supply-side factors in determining contraceptive choices have yielded mixed results in the context of rural India. Using small-scale survey data of 1348 women from rural West Bengal and by employing multilevel multinomial logit models, this study tested the influence of these factors after controlling for various soc...

Dramatic improvements in fertility control mark some of the most significant technological changes of the twentieth century, and so it seems paradoxical that the same period saw widespread and large increases in non-marital births. We link these two trends and examine the effect of increased access to the birth control Pill on non-marital childbearing and shot-gun marriage rates, along with oth...

1 Victora CG, Lessa Horta B, Loret de Mola C, et al. Association between breastfeeding and intelligence, educational attainment, and income at 30 years of age: a prospective birth cohort study from Brazil. Lancet Glob Health 2015; 3: e199–205. 2 Brown RE. Breast-feeding and family planning: a review of the relationships between breastfeeding and family planning. Am J Clin Nutr 1982; 35: 162–71....

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with mortality in children under 5 years of age using a nationally representative sample of singleton births for the period of 2004-2011. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Pooled 2004, 2007 and 2011 cross-sectional data sets of the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys were analysed. The surveys used a stratified two-stage ...

OBJECTIVE To explore the context, experiences and pathways of seeking abortion care among married women in a minority dominated urban slum community in Mumbai city of India. MATERIALS AND METHODS A mixed-method study was conducted using a systematic random sampling method to select 282 respondents from the slum community. One fifth of these womenreported undergoing at least one induced aborti...

BACKGROUND Neonatal mortality is a global challenge; identification of individual and community determinants associated with it are important for targeted interventions. However in most low and middle income countries (LMICs) including Ghana this problem has not been adequately investigated as the impact of contextual factors remains undetermined despite their significant influence on under-fiv...