THE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOTHERS’ WORK AND INFANT MORTALITY AND MORBIDITY IN THAILAND
Infant mortality is an important indicator of national development and
health. Although Thailand has a declining trend in morbidity and mortality
rates due to the development of national health care and economic growth, Thai
infant death and morbidity rates are still high compared with many other
countries. Since the mother is usually the key caretaker of children in early
life, the relationship between mothers and infants can have an important impact
on infant health. Thailand's socio-economic development patterns include
increasing proportions of mothers working outside the home to contribute to
household income. Mosley and Chen's analytical framework (1984) and Briggs'
multiple exposures multiple effects model (MEME) (2003) are the most prominent
frameworks for the study of child survival in developing countries. This study
examines the relationship between mothers' work and infant morbidity and
mortality in Thailand using data from the prospective cohort study of Thai
children (PCTC) 2000-2002.
Bivariate
results show that mother's work status and occupation have an independent
relationship with infant mortality and infant morbidity at 6-12 months. After
categorizing the type of illness, mother's occupation is found to have an
effect on self-reported infant wheezing in five study areas and on perinatal
hospitalization in three rural areas. However, mother's work outside the
household has no relationship with infant illness in the first 3 months or 3-6
months, including hospitalization for respiratory illness, diarrhea or other
diseases or self-reported infant atopic dermatitis. However, multivariate
analysis in the form of logistic regression does not find a significant effect
for mother's work status or occupation after considering other factors such as
the study area. Therefore, work status and occupation of mothers during 28-36
weeks of pregnancy period have only clude
relationship with infant mortality and infant morbidity in this Thai cohort
study. The potential benefits of this study are to provide evidence to support
an intensified role of the state to support working mothers in the work place;
support for an enhanced role for conventional medicine to help decrease adverse
infant health; and a better understanding of how the family can support the
balancing between infant care and mothers' work.
Keyword: infant
mortality, infant morbidity, maternal employment, mothers work,
hospitalization, child health, occupation, infant illness.
