Abstract

Childhood injury is the most common among the children aged 0–5 years in Bangladesh. In rural Bangladesh, children are mostly vulnerable and injury-prone during the busy time of their mothers. Study findings shows that crèche is an effective intervention for preventing childhood injury when mothers are busy enough to household chores during 9 am to 1 pm. To examine the role of community crèche as a preventive measure for ensuring the reduced rate of childhood injury. A pre and post quasi-experimental study was designed based on structured questionnaire. Face- to- face data collected using survey questionnaire among the households with children. Before intervention a survey was carried out in working areas and data showed that burn injury, cut injury, animal bite are most common childhood fatal injuries. The overall injury mortality rate was 38 per year. Drowning was the leading external cause of injury death, and falls caused the most number of non-fatal injuries. Fatal injury rates were highest in children aged 1–4 years. Non-fatal injury rates were also highest in children aged 1–4 years. In most cases, when they got the injury they were unattended in household premises by their mothers as major caregiver. In early findings data suggests that the home environment was the most common location for most injuries. After crèche establishment fatal injury reduced 30% among the children aged 1–4 years and the respondent mothers admitted that they sent their children to community crèche. As a result of crèche enlistment childhood injuries reduced significantly. The crèche intervention successfully proven as preventive vaccine for reducing the injury rate among the children in rural context. In where early childhood development was also embedded with crèche development which gives some respite for mothers for concentrating more in household chores during daytime.