Thirty-five years later: Long-term effects of the Matlab maternal and child health/family planning program on older women’s well-being
Tania Barham, Brachel Champion, Andrew Foster, Jena Hamadani, Warren C. Jochem, Gisella Kagy, Randall Kuhn, Jane Menken, Abdur Razzaque, Elisabeth Dowling Root, Patrick Turner
Abstract
Significance Few studies have addressed links between family planning programs and long-term benefits for women’s health and economic outcomes, especially in societies where old-age support and women’s status are tied to childbearing and where smaller families may carry negative consequences for women. We analyzed the maternal and child health/family planning (MCH/FP) program, a highly effective intervention introduced in the rural Matlab subdistrict of Bangladesh in 1977 with a subsequent 12-y differential in service access. We found significant differences in lifetime contraceptive behavior and completed fertility among women born 1938−1973. We found few effects on later health or economic outcomes except for an association of MCH/FP with poorer overall health and poorer metabolic health among women born 1950−1961.