Prevalence and Determinants of Maternal Health Complications among Female Tea Garden Workers in Sylhet: A Community based cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Tea garden workers in Bangladesh live in poverty due to their low wages. Especially the female tea workers who are deprived of all their rights including maternal health services. The main aim of this study is to assess the prevalence and determinants of maternal health complications among female tea garden workers in Sylhet. Methodology: We interviewed 273 females from the Rajghat Tea Estate and Allinagar Tea Estate in Sylhet. From all the purposively households, we interviewed the mother who had 12-month or less-aged children. We estimated the prevalence and 95% confidence intervals (CI) during pregnancy and delivery. Categorical variables were presented as frequencies and proportions. Result: The mean age group from the total sample size is 24.22±4.60. Almost 50% (47.3) of participants don't have any educational qualifications, and 70% are permanently working in a tea garden as tea workers. Although 80% visited 4+ ANC visits, 71.4% of females did their last home delivery. Sorrowfully, unawareness, less education, and qualification have so many consequences that almost 91.6% had complications during pregnancy. Overall, 42.9% of participants had c-sections during the last delivery, and to expense c-sections, 42% of participants went to take a loan in installments. Out of all the participants, almost 65.6% had smoked tobacco during their maternity. According to the nutritious food measurement we got out of the total participants, only 12.8% of participants had fruits, 75.5% had fresh vegetables, 62.6% had fish, 32.7% had egg, 33.7% had chicken, and 81.7% had green leaves. Conclusion: Maternal health Complications have been a severe issue in underprivileged communities like tea gardens. Due to a lack of basic utility services, particularly in working conditions, these communities' living conditions, lack of awareness, poverty, etc are very precarious. Evidence-based prevention strategies are required to address this issue.