Measurement of post-partum amenorrhoea in Bangladesh
Rahman, M.M.
Journal of Biosocial Science 24(1): 17-24
1992
ISSN/ISBN: 0021-9320 PMID: 1737811 DOI: 10.1017/s0021932000006763Document Number: 317330
A researcher used data on about 4,000 women from the 1975 Bangladesh Fertility Survey (part of the World Fertility Survey) to illustrate a technique to smooth amenorrhea data since the mothers preferred to report 6 month intervals and ton construct an amenorrhea life table for mothers from Bangladesh. Specifically he categorized women by marriage cohort and used 7, 13, 19, 25, 31, 37, 43, and 49 month durations for the life table and to modify an exponential curve to smooth the amenorrhea data. He further broke down the durations to 1 month when he compared women married between 1945-1949 and 1960-1964 for 2 amenorrhea life tables. When he plotted the observed and estimated values, he learned that a shift in the percentage of women experiencing postpartum amenorrhea for lower durations (up to 7 months) occurred over time. Further the estimates of the amenorrhea life tables confirmed that the duration of postpartum amenorrhea has fallen. In addition, these tables showed that 50% of the women began menstruating again around month 9 postpartum and that, by month 33 postpartum, 90% did. In conclusion, the modified exponential curves appeared to be sound for smoothing postpartum amenorrhea data in Bangladesh.