To improve countrywide family planning service and to create awareness to stop adolescent pregnancy, a five-day-long campaign was inaugurated on December 7, 2019 in Azimpur Maternity and Child Health Training Institute (MCHTI) in the capital.
The Family Welfare Service and Publicity Week will be observed from December 7 to 12, with the theme ‘Take Family Planning Services, and Prevent Adolescent Motherhood'.
In 8 divisions across the country, 64 districts, 488 Upazilas, 60 maternity and child welfare centers, along with 4008 union health and family welfare centers in addition to 4,628 centers, will be observed simultaneously this week.
Secretary of the Ministry of Health Education and Family Welfare, Division, Shaikh Yusuf Harun on Saturday centrally inaugurated the ‘The Family Welfare Service and Publicity Week 2019’.
While inaugurating the awareness campaign week as chief guest, Shaikh Yusuf Harun said, “countrywide maternity health service gradually developing with the collaborative efforts from government,”
We want to cut the maternal mortality rate to 70 percent per 1 lakh live births and infant mortality rate to 12 per 1,000 live births by 2030 to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, he added.
Adolescent pregnancy results in relatively high for maternal and infant mortality; these rates are much above average in Bangladesh.
Earlier, on Thursday, at a press conference organized by the Family Planning Department at Karwan Bazar in the capital, Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque said, “Government has decided to distribute free sanitary napkins among poor women and adolescent girls.”
Menstruation is a part of the life of women and adolescent girls, but maintaining hygiene is crucial during the period. Unhygienic menstruation products can cause infections and even cancer,’ he added.
He urged the prospective mothers to give birth at institutional childbirth centers to reduce infant and maternal mortality rates.
Secretary of the Ministry of Health Education and Family Welfare, Shaikh Yusuf Harun, Director General of the Department of Health, Abul Kalam Azad and Director-General of the Department of Family Planning, Kazi A Kha M Mohiul Islam, were present at the press conference.
In the past years, the country achieved significant success in reducing maternal and infant mortality. Emphasizing the importance of reducing adolescent maternal mortality rate, the minister said that the current rate of adolescent maternal mortality in the country is 113 which should be reduced to fifty by 2030.