Factors Associated with Infant and Under-five Mortality in Myanmar

Abstract

Myanmar is committed to achieve unfinished agenda for reducing child mortality, fourth indicator of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and global target to achieve under-five mortality rate 25 per 1000 live births in 2030. Moreover, under-five mortality varies across states and regions within the country and the study aims to explore determinants of mortality across different health care planning zones. The results showed that infants who were breastfed had lower risk of death by 11.7 percent comparison with children who were not, and twin or multiple births were more likely to die by 8.1%. Moreover, short preceding birth interval, mothers with no using contraceptives, birth order, size of baby after delivery, caesarean born child were found to be statistically significant predictors of infant mortality. Furthermore, the study found regional disparities and infant from Hilly and Dry zones more like to die by 2.6% and 2.1% in comparison with infants from Coastal zone. In additionally, infants of mothers residing in rich household wealth were less likely to die by 4.4% than those of infants from poor wealth in Dry zone, infants of mothers belonged to secondary education were less likely to die by 4.4% than those infants of mothers with no education or primary level in Delta zone, urban infant tends to survive than rural infant in Hilly zone. Finally, the findings from this study showed that determinants of infant mortality vary across the four zones and overall sample and highlight multi-sectoral coordination to improve infant survival in Myanmar.