TITLE:
Early Postnatal Care Practices for Mothers and Their Babies in Bangladesh: An Integrative Literature Review
AUTHORS:
Nusrat Jahan, Md. Shahidul Islam
KEYWORDS:
Postnatal, Childbirth, Mothers, Babies, Bangladesh
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.10 No.2,
February
23,
2022
ABSTRACT: This integrative review aimed to describe the experiences of early
postnatal care practices for mothers and their babies in rural Bangladesh. This
study was conducted using an integrative review method outlined by Coughlan,
Cronin and Ryan. An integrative search in ProQuest, PubMed, CINAHL,
Sociological Abstract, and Google Scholar was conducted. The key terms include
safe motherhood, postnatal care, MDGs, newborn care, maternal mortality, TBAs,
cultural practice in childbirth and Bangladesh. After screening of the
full-text and guided by the relevance of the studies against the inclusion
criteria, a total of 22 studies were selected for final review. The results
reveal that women’s behaviours and attitudes during the postnatal period are
shaped by individual beliefs and views as well as by socio-cultural practices.
It shows how indigenous knowledge and practices affected women’s postnatal care
practices for generations. From the results, it is
clear that rural women in Bangladesh followed many cultural practices during
childbirth and postnatal period. In rural Bangladesh, postnatal care behaviour
is mostly imposed by traditional cultural practices. Therefore, it is important
to understand women’s cultural practices around childbirth, and in particular
to understand their experiences during the postnatal period.