Maternal and Child Health in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is one of the developing countries that signed onto achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the new target of SDGs the issue of maternal is fitting under goal number three; Good health and well-being which was targeted under the fifth goal in the previous Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework. Over the last two decades, national health policy and strategies progressed with significant achievements.

In Bangladesh, the health care service and the system are complex of different initiatives; public, private and NGO healthcare are major. Informal practitioners also cover a notable portion of health care. The government is the central actor in the country’s health system and public health care service is foremost and stronger in the sense of infrastructure. However, the private sector is playing a supplementary and often competitive role in the health sector with the public one. NGOs also have a significant role in providing primary, reproductive and family planning services and sometimes influencing the government’s strategy in adopting models of health care delivery.

Bangladesh has cut its child mortality for children under the age by 63% since 2000, and by 77% since 1990; while the country is expected to reach the global target of 25 or fewer deaths per 1,000 births in years before the 2030 deadline of Sustainable Development goals (SDGs), reads the Global Childhood Report 2019 of Save the Children published recently.

Bangladesh launched the National Newborn Health Program to further reduce deaths for children under the age of five. The new initiative focuses on scaling up a package of evidence-based interventions in each of the country’s 64 districts.

Socioeconomic and geographical inequities adversely affect health outcomes in Bangladesh. Improved equity in the delivery of health interventions and services presents an opportunity for Bangladesh to ensure continued progress in reducing child and maternal mortality.