Effects of community based maternal and infant health interventions through women's groups participations in South Asia

Abstract

This thesis studies various impacts of community based maternal and infant health interventions implemented in South Asia. Community participation and gender mainstreaming in maternal and infant health programmes are major cross cutting concerns around the world. Particularly in the resource poor settings, the involvement of local women and women's groups in health programmes has been adopted as a specific strategic approach as well as technical and organizational process to achieve the goal. The community based maternal and infant health interventions through the involvement of local women and women's groups has resulted significant impacts on the health of mother and child, especially through the significant modifications in their household behavioral and health care seeking knowledge and practices. Rigorous literature review of published scientific papers was done with special focus on some influential randomized control trial studies conducted in South Asia using various databases including Medline, Cinhahl, Scopus, Science direct, Google scholar, PubMed etc. And the findings from the study has demonstrated that approach of participating women's groups in the maternal and infant health interventions can significantly increase knowledge and skills regarding nutrition, birth preparedness, antenatal check and care, institutional delivery, safe cutting of baby cord, breastfeeding, sanitation, etc. These progresses, which were achieved during prenatal, natal and post periods were important factors for the long term positive impacts in health and social life of the community such as decrease in maternal and infant mortalities rate. Key words: community participation and effects in maternal and infant health, women involvement and impacts of maternal and infant health programmes, community mobilization and maternal and infant health, participatory women groups and effects on maternal and infant health.