Strategic assessment of reproductive health in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic

The status of women’s reproductive health remains a serious problem in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Although data on reproductive health are generally scarce, the maternal mortality ratio has been estimated to be 656 per 100,000 live births (Ministry of Public Health and United Nations Children’s Fund (MOPH and UNICEF), 1998). Estimates of total fertility rates vary from 4.7 children per woman for urban women to 7.8 for rural women (National Statistical Centre (NSC) and the Lao Women’s Training Centre (LWTC), 1995). Only limited data exist on the incidence of reproductive tract infections (RTIs and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), but anecdotal evidence suggests that the magnitude of these problems is likely to be great. The data from the sentinel surveillance system show generally low prevalence rates for HIV, but only limited testing has been carried out and a more comprehensive sentinel surveillance system has only recently been put into place. Abortion and adolescent reproductive health remain politically sensitive issues. A report from a small-scale survey conducted by the Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP) in three districts showed that the abortion rate was 101.1 per thousand pregnancies (Podhisita and others, 1997). Early marriage and pregnancy in adolescence are the norm in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, The Fertility and Birth Spacing Survey (NSC and LWTC, 1995) estimated that the median age at first birth for all married women was 20.5 years.