Empowering young mothers in India: Results of the First-time Parents Project. Updated.

The Population Council seeks to increase attention to and foster efforts that support married adolescent girls. To that end the Council in partnership with the Child In Need Institute and Deepak Charitable Trust implemented a comprehensive intervention called the First-time Parents Project. The project was based on the hypothesis that the periods following marriage and surrounding the first birth though characterized by greater vulnerability offer a unique opportunity to improve the prospects of young mothers and foster more equitable relations with their husbands. The First-time Parents Project was conducted in two settings in rural India: Vadodara Block in Gujarat and Diamond Harbour Block in West Bengal. The Council and its partners designed a two-year quasi-experimental study with surveys at baseline and endline to assess the effects of the intervention on young women’s reproductive health knowledge and practices partner communication and support social networks and personal agency. In-depth interviews supplemented the baseline survey. The intervention focused on young women who were newly married pregnant or postpartum for the first time. Husbands of these young women senior family members and health care providers were also included. The project consisted of three mutually reinforcing components: Providing health education and information; Modifying existing pregnancy childbirth and postpartum services; and establishing groups of married girls to reduce their social isolation and increase their agency. Intervention activities were tailored to reflect the unique characteristics of each population and the comparative strengths of the NGO partners at each site. The intervention had significant positive effects on girls’ autonomy reproductive health knowledge and practice and couple relations (Excerpts)