Background: The availability and use of menstrual management (MR) services can help women terminate pregnancies at an early stage, i.e., reduce the adverse consequences associated with unintended pregnancies. We explored the prevalence and determinants of MR services knowledge and its use among ever-married women in Bangladesh.
Methods: A total of 20127 ever-married women data from the 2017 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey were analyzed. Knowledge about menstrual regulation and its use was our outcome variable. Several individual, household, and community-level factors were considered as explanatory variables. The multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regression model was used to determine the factors associated with MR service knowledge and its use in Bangladesh.
Results: Around 71% of the total analyzed women reported they know about MR service while only 7% of them reported they used this service within three years of the survey date. MR service knowledge was found 10-16% higher among women with increased age and education. Rural women and women who resided in the community with lower poverty and higher illiteracy reported around 4-9% lower knowledge of MR service. MR service use was found higher among women whose husbands were businessmen and inherent in the community with lower poverty. Lower use of MR service was found among women residing in Chattogram, Khulna, and Mymensingh divisions.
Conclusion: The use of MR service is very low in Bangladesh. This could be responsible for higher adverse consequences related to unintended pregnancy including higher maternal and child mortality. Policies and programs are important to aware women of MR.
Keywords: Menstrual regulation, Pattern, Contextual, Maternal health, Bangladesh