Assessing effectiveness of a person-centered group ANC-PNC model among first-time young mothers and their partners for improving quality and use of MNCH-FP services

This baseline report is part of an operations research project “Healthy Women, Healthy Families (HWHF): Shustha Ma, Shustha Poribar” led by Management Sciences for Health (MSH) in partnership with BRAC, SCOPE, and the Population Council. The project aims to improve quality and increase utilization of maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) and family planning (FP) services and information for young mothers-to-be, first-time mothers (FTMs) aged 15-24, and their partners in the urban municipality of Tongi, Gazipur District, Bangladesh, through a group antenatal care ANC-PNC approach. The objectives of this study are to establish baseline values of selected HWHF project result indicators against which the impacts of the project’s intervention can be measured. The target group is young, first-time parents and the study examines the current status of knowledge on MNCH-FP and access to services among FTMs. This quasi-experimental pre-post control group design study employs both quantitative and qualitative data-collection methods. A simple random sampling procedure was employed to select respondents from BRAC FTM lists, while qualitative informants were selected purposively.