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Prevalence and factors of cesarean delivery among Bangladeshi reproductive aged women: evidence from multiple Indicator cluster survey 2019 data

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Abstract

Aim

The prevalence of cesarean section (CS) delivery has been increasing dramatically in both developed and developing countries. South Asian countries, including Bangladesh, have recorded substantial increases in CS over the past decade. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and associated factors of cesarean delivery in Bangladesh.

Subject and methods

Nationally representative cross-sectional secondary data was extracted from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2019, Bangladesh. CS was measured in two categories with cesarean and non-cesarean responses obtained by interviewing the women aged 15–49 years with a live birth in the past 2 years. Chi-square test was used to examine the significant association of mode of delivery (cesarean or non-cesarean delivery). Binary logistic regression was used to assess the factors of CS. Analysis was carried out using STATA version 16.

Results

The study showed that among 9208 respondents, 36.1% of women underwent CS. The multivariate analysis indicated that mothers who were over 30 years old [OR 1.02; (95% CI 0.85, 1.21)], had higher education [OR 3.80; (95% CI 2.92, 4.94)], had rich wealth indexes [OR 2.41; (95% CI 2.12, 2.75)], gave birth in private health facility [OR = 8.77; (95% CI 7.6, 10.2)], took antenatal care (ANC) more than three times [OR 4.84, (95% CI 4.02,5.83)], and also gave birth to a larger than average sized baby [OR 1.45; (95% CI 1.22, 1.73)] were significantly associated with CS delivery.

Conclusion

Bangladesh’s health system urgently needs policy guidelines to monitor clinical indications of CS delivery and prevent an exessive number of CS in private health facilities, which is an essential step to reduce the high prevalence of CS.

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Availability of data and materials

Data set used in this study is available at https://mics.unicef.org/surveys.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestion that helped to improve the quality of the paper. We would also like to thank the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2019, Bangladesh for providing us nationally representative-based data.

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This research had no funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. M.Sc. Department of Statistics, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, 1000, Bangladesh

    Md. Momin Islam & Farha Musharrat Noor

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  1. Md. Momin Islam
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  2. Farha Musharrat Noor
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Contributions

FMN and MMI formulated the research questions, designed the study, analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript. Both authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Farha Musharrat Noor.

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Ethical considerations

The survey protocol had been approved by the technical committee of the Government of Bangladesh lead by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. This study did not need any ethical approval because the identified data for this study came from secondary sources.

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Not applicable for this study.

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Authors have no conflict of interest.

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Islam, M.M., Noor, F.M. Prevalence and factors of cesarean delivery among Bangladeshi reproductive aged women: evidence from multiple Indicator cluster survey 2019 data. J Public Health (Berl.) 30, 2103–2112 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-021-01551-9

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