Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Introduction Unassisted delivery or assisted by untrained or unskilled birth attendance is a public health issue associated with maternal mortality and morbidity around the world. A birth attendant, is a midwife, physician, obstetrician, nurse, or other health care professional who provides basic and emergency health care services to women and their newborns during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. Birth attendants are trained to be present at childbirth, whether the delivery takes place in a health care institution or at home, to recognize and respond appropriately to medical complications, and to implement interventions to help prevent them in the frst place including through prenatal care. 1 Traditional birth attendants (TBAs) play an important role in regions where most births take place in the home 2 and, in Asia, constitute the largest single group of birth attendants (41% of births). 3 According to The World Health Organization (WHO), TBA is “a person who assists the mother during childbirth and initially acquired her skills by delivering babies herself or through apprenticeship to other TBAs”. 4 TBAs are integral members of their communities and provide an important window to local customs, traditions, and perceptions regarding childbirth and newborn care. 5,6 Traditional midwives provide basic health care, support and advice during and after pregnancy and childbirth, based primarily on experience and knowledge acquired informally through the traditions and practices of the communities where they originated. 7 TBAs provide the majority of primary maternity care in many developing countries and may function within specifc communities in developed countries. In Bangladesh, although women living in urban slum areas of Dhaka reside in close proximity to facilities with skilled care, 70% of women in urban areas give birth at home with non-medically trained providers 8 which is likely to be even higher in urban slums in 2004. The World Health Organization estimates of coverage show that in 2011, only 18% of births in Bangladesh were attended by skilled personnel, in Nepal this was 19%, Pakistan 39% and India 47%. 9 According to study of Bidhan Krishna Sarker et al., 10 the majority of deliveries still take place at home (62%), and more than 56% deliveries are assisted by traditional birth attendants (TBAs) or relatives while medically trained personnel conduct only 42% of all births, both at home and in facilities at the national level. The deliveries which take place at home and are assisted by TBAs are often performed in unsafe and unhygienic conditions resulting in increased risk of maternal and child morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study was to fnd out the participation of TBA in pregnancy outcome in Dhaka City regarding safe motherhood. Methodology of the study Type of study The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The target group of the study was lactating mothers and their under-three year’s MOJ Public Health. 2018;7(2):69‒73 69 © 2018 Howlader et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Rate of home delivery and participation of traditional birth attendants is declining in selected areas of Dhaka city Volume 7 Issue 2 - 2018 Shahab Uddin Howlader, 1 Abdur Razzak, 1 Salim Raza, 2 Sabir Hossain 1 1 Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh 2 Department of Applied Nutrition and Food Technology, Bangladesh Correspondence: Abdur Razzak, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Email razzak.offcial@gmail.com Received: February 16, 2018 | Published: April 03, 2018 Abstract The rate of home delivery and role of traditional birth attendants are declining rapidly. The aim of this study was to find out the current situation of home delivery and participation of birth attendants in Dhaka City regarding safe motherhood. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in this research. This study found that 53.9% baby was delivered normally and 45.9% baby was delivered by surgical operation during study period. Institutional delivery rate was 75.5% in this study (37.7% in Clinic, 35.6% in Hospital, and 2.3% health care center) and one forth (24.5%) was delivered in home. The type of delivery was significantly related to maternal age, education and income level. In case of birth attendants, 56.2% babies were delivered by health service personnel, 35.2% by TTBA and 8.7% babies were delivered by TBA. Maternal education, pre-pregnancy nutritional status and family income have strong effect on type of birth attendants. Type of birth attendants had strong correlation with maternal age (p=0.000) and family income (p=0.000) and had association with parental education (p=0.000). Types of delivery (p=0.000), place of delivery (p=0.000), bleeding after delivery (p=0.000) were significantly associated with birth attendants. Moreover, infection after delivery (p=0.000), treatment with antibiotics (p=0.000) had significant association with birth attendants. It can be concluded that rate of home delivery and involvement of TBA in pregnancy outcome decreasing day by day which is strongly related with maternal age, education and family income. Type of birth attendants is also related with other obstetric care services in Dhaka City. Keywords: TBA, delivery, maternal age, education, income MOJ Public Health Research Article Open Access