Heard and Hard Reality of Maternal Health: Are We Oversimplifying the Challenges in Bangladesh?

Abstract

Maternal health largely reflects women’s status in a society (Shen and Williamson 1999, 210–211). It is a domain that explicates women’s basic access and rights to economic livelihood, education, healthcare, nutrition, equality, justice, and many more (Kuruvilla et al. 2014, 540–541). Every day 830 women die from preventable maternal causes across the world, with 99% in developing countries, revealing the level of global inequality (World Health Organization 2018). Maternal death is defined as “death of woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes” (Alkema et al. 2016, 463). Existing research has shown that the period from conception to childbirth is in fact shaped and patterned by social and cultural values impacting women’s status prevailing in a society (Afsana and Rashid 2009, 128–133; Davis-Floyd 1994, 1125; Jordan 1997, 56–61). The interplay of different stakeholders and systems in society influences a woman’s journey throughout her life. In this paper, I will present the state of maternal health in Bangladesh and the obstacles the country is facing in reducing maternal deaths…