Mother and child visit a satellite clinic in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Photo taken by: Ms. Adiba Hassan, alumna of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and current coordinator of Graduate Training Programs at ASPH. She took this picture of a slum in the Mirpur region of Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2007 during a summer internship program.  Ms. Hassan was there to analyze the efforts of a local NGO who sent paramedics to various slums in the region to deliver minimal antenatal/postnatal care, as well as encourage women to attend and deliver at hospitals.  The woman pictured visited the satellite clinic situated in a tight, dimly lit corner of a local slum vendor shop.  She visited the paramedic with hopes of receiving a contraception shot while the child she carried in her arms suffered from a high fever.  Afraid of not being able to bear medication costs, she refused to have her child checked.

Bangladesh has suffered from high maternal mortality rates and has made efforts to tackle this issue by increasing access to emergency obstetric care and antenatal and post-natal care sought by women.   However, there is much disparity in the behavior of seeking care between women who are less educated and poor and those who are affluent.  Women in the slums are at high risks of complications and are more likely to suffer from maternal malnutrition, pregnancy infections and anemia due to their poor economic and social status, contributing to low birth weight babies and high maternal mortalities.  NGO’s in Dhaka have set up satellite Maternal and Child health clinics to make antennal/postnatal care more accessible for the slum women who are unable to travel to clinics. 

In 1997 the maternal mortality rate in Bangladesh was approximately 440 for every 100,000 children born. It has since decreased to 320 per 100,000 in 2001.  In 2001, only 11.8 percent of deliveries were assisted by doctors, midwives or nurses.  More effort needs to be made encouraging high risk women, such as those residing in the numerous slums, to seek care for pregnancy by making it accessible, affordable and beneficial.

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