Pregnancy-Related Complications and Their Socioeconomic Determinants among Low-Income Women in Bangladesh

Obstetrics complication as a result of pregnancy is a significant socio-cultural health issue in low socio-economic environments especially in Bangladesh where social-economic deprivation and poor circumstances of accessing high-quality maternal healthcare are still widespread. This paper focuses on the commonality of the pregnancy related complications and the socioeconomic factors of these among the low income women in Bangladesh through a cross-section design. Five hundred pregnant women who were recruited in the community and facility based settings and in various districts were used to collect the data. Data of socio-demographic status, education, occupation, marital status, access to healthcare facilities and conditions during pregnancy, such as anemia, hypertensive disorders, and pregnancy infections, were collected by means of structured interviews and antenatal documentation. The descriptive statistics, a bivariate analysis, and a multivariate logistic regression model were used to determine factors related to pregnancy-related complications as well as sensitivity and interaction analyses. The results show that majority of the participants had one or more pregnancy-related complications. Education levels of the mothers and the occupation status became major risk factors with women who had low or incomplete levels of education having higher odds of complications especially anemia. A job in the service line of work was linked to a lower risk of complications. The associations of hypertensive disorders with social vulnerability were also more pronounced with separated or divorced status of marriage whereas the severe complications had less strong associations with characteristic socioeconomic factors in the individual, implying the impact of health system and emergency care variables. Altogether, the paper presents the paramount importance of socioeconomic and structural factors to maternal health.