Overview

The complexity of delivering maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) and family planning (FP) services in the urban slums of Tongi is exacerbated by Bangladesh’s deep gender inequities; high rates of adolescent fertility; low levels of reproductive health knowledge; and poor quality and uptake of health services, especially among young people. The Healthy Women, Healthy Families project (“Shustha Ma, Shustha Poribar” in Bangla) aims to provide services that will improve the quality, acceptability, and accessibility of care for young women and children in Tongi; improve birth spacing; and provide evidence to inform future models of care in Bangladesh.

With a dynamic group of partners, including BRAC, Scope, and the Population Council, we are leading the three-year project to increase utilization and improve quality of MNCH and FP services in the Tongi, Gazipur City Corporation, near Dhaka. We are co-designing, implementing, and evaluating a program for young women and their partners experiencing their first pregnancy. This work is being done in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives, which share responsibility for urban health in Bangladesh.

The adaptive approach, co-designed with young women and health workers, will complement existing facility-based care with a community platform and social support services to provide women with access to critical health information and peer support while helping them develop life skills. This program will improve both the clinical quality and the experience of antenatal and postnatal care, newborn and infant health and nutrition, and planning for healthy birth spacing.