Neonatal Morbidity and Care-seeking Behaviour in Rural Bangladesh

The present study was undertaken to assess the pattern of reported neonatal morbidity and the care-seeking behaviour for neonates in rural Bangladesh. Data were collected from 1511 women who had live births during January 1996-August 1998 in four rural subdistricts, which are the field sites of the Operations Research Project of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information from the mothers who were interviewed in their homes. Forty-nine per cent of the neonates were reported to have suffered from some kind of morbidity. Fever was the most common morbidity reported in the study population (21 per cent), followed by breathing difficulty (11 per cent). Birth order, complications during pregnancy, and/or delivery…