Child care hygiene practices of women migrating from rural to urban areas of bangladesh.

Children's hygiene is very important for better health but there is a paucity of studies in this area. This questionnaire study examined the child care hygiene practices of mothers of young children. A total of 354 women from slum areas of Dhaka city, Bangladesh, who migrated from rural to urban areas were selected for this study. The mean score on hygiene practice was 6.21 of 10 items (SD = 2.113). Low (score = 3) and high hygiene practice (score = 7-10) were practiced by 12.4% and 45.8% of participants, respectively. Multivariate regression analysis indicated that independent variables explained 39.9% of variance in hygiene practices. Eight variables have significant effect: participant's education (0.108; P < .05), time spent since marriage to first birth (0.030; P < .05), number of children (-0.105; P < .05), number of antenatal visits (0.319; P < .001), microcredit status (0.214; P < .001), breastfeeding (0.224; P < .001), husband's monthly income (0.146; P < .001), and household economic status (-0.0114; P < .05). The overall hygiene practice indicates the necessity of awareness building initiatives.

Attitudes towards justifying intimate partner violence among married women in Bangladesh.

This study examines women's attitude towards intimate partner violence among 331 Bangladeshi women in five selected disadvantaged areas of Dhaka city. This study used a shorter version of the Inventory of Beliefs about Wife Beating (IBWB) to measure women's attitude towards intimate partner violence. The results revealed that the mean score on the wife-beating scale of 15 items was 7.81 (SD = 4.893). Significant amounts of the variance (42.9%) in women's attitude towards intimate partner violence can be attributed to respondent's education (B = -0.60, p < 0.001), husband's education (B = -1.251, p < 0.01), exposure to mass media (B = -1.251, p < 0.01), respondent's current age (B = 0.081, p < 0.05), age at marriage (B = 0.215, p < 0.01), intimate partner violence victimization within the last 12 months (B = -1.533, p < 0.001) and women receiving micro-credit (small-scale loan or financial assistance) (B = -2.214, p < 0.001). The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings.

Impact of targeted food supplementation on pregnancy weight gain and birth weight in rural Bangladesh: an assessment of the Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Program (BINP).

OBJECTIVES: To assess whether the Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Programme (BINP) correctly identified which pregnant women should be enrolled in the food supplementation programme, whether supplementation commenced on time and was taken on a regular basis. A second objective was to determine whether food supplementation led to enhanced pregnancy weight gain and reduction in the prevalence of low birth weight. DESIGN: A one-year community-based longitudinal study. SETTING: A rural union of Bhaluka Upazila, Mymensingh, located 110 km north-west of Dhaka City, the capital of Bangladesh.ParticipantsA total of 1104 normotensive, non-smoking pregnant women who attended Community Nutrition Centres were studied from first presentation at the centre until child delivery. RESULTS: Pregnant women who had a BMI of <18.5 kg/m(2) on first presentation should have been selected for supplementary feeding (2512 kJ (600 kcal)/d for six days per week) starting at month 4 (16 weeks) of pregnancy. However, of the 526 women who had BMI < 18.5 kg/m(2), only 335 received supplementation; so the failure rate was 36.3 %. In addition, of those receiving supplementation, only 193 women (36.7 % of 526 women) commenced supplementation at the correct time, of whom thirty-two (9.6 % of 335 women) received supplementation for the correct number of days (100 % days). There were no significant differences in mean weight gain between BMI < 18.5 kg/m(2) supplemented or non-supplemented groups or between the equivalent groups with BMI > or = 18.5 kg/m(2). Weight gain was inversely related to initial weight, so lighter women gained relatively more weight during their pregnancy than heavier women. The mean birth weight in the supplemented and non-supplemented groups was 2.63 kg and 2.72 kg, respectively. Mothers with BMI < 18.5 kg/m(2) who were or were not supplemented had almost equal percentages of low-birth-weight babies (21 % and 22 %, respectively). CONCLUSION: The study raises doubt about the efficiency of the BINP to correctly target food supplementation to pregnant women. It also shows that food supplementation does not lead to enhanced pregnancy weight gain nor does it provide any evidence of a reduction in prevalence of low birth weight.

The impact of food supplementation on infant weight gain in rural Bangladesh; an assessment of the Bangladesh Integrated Nutritional Program (BINP).

OBJECTIVES: To examine the efficiency of the Bangladesh Integrated Nutritional Program (BINP) in identifying which infants should be supplemented, whether full supplementation was given for the stipulated period of time, and whether the correct exit criteria from the supplementation programme were used. To test whether targeted food supplementation of infants between 6-12 months of age resulted in enhanced weight gain. SETTING: Mallickbari Union, Bhaluka, a rural area located about 100 km north of Dhaka, Bangladesh. PARTICIPANTS: Five hundred and twenty-six infants followed for 6 to 12 months. RESULTS: Of the 526 infants studied, 368 should have received supplementation based on BINP criteria but only 111 infants (30%) did so, while a further 13% were incorrectly given supplementation. So in total over half (52.8%) of the sample was incorrectly identified for supplementation. In addition, less than a quarter of the infants received the full 90 days of supplementation and close to half of the infants exited the programme without the requisite weight gain. Infants were assigned to one of four groups: correctly supplemented, correctly non-supplemented, incorrectly supplemented or incorrectly non-supplemented. This classification provided natural controls; the correctly supplemented infants versus the incorrectly non-supplemented infants, and the correctly non-supplemented infants versus the incorrectly supplemented infants. There were no significant differences in weight gain between the correctly supplemented group and the incorrectly non-supplemented group or between the correctly non-supplemented and the incorrectly supplemented groups, nor was there any evidence of growth faltering in the incorrectly non-supplemented group. CONCLUSIONS: This study found serious programmatic deficiencies - inability to identify growth faltering in infants, failure to supplement for the full time period and incorrect exit procedures. There was no evidence that food supplementation had any impact on improving infant weight gain.