Immediate and early postnatal care for mothers and newborns in rural Bangladesh.
The study evaluated the impact of essential newborn-care interventions at the household level in the Saving Newborn Lives project areas. Two household surveys were conducted following the 30-cluster sampling method using a structured questionnaire in 2002 (baseline) and 2004 (endline) respectively. In total, 3,325 mothers with children aged less than one year in baseline and 3,110 mothers in endline from 10 sub-districts were interviewed during each survey. The proportion of newborns dried and wrapped immediately after birth increased from 14% in 2002 to 55% in 2004; 76.2% of the newborns were put to the mother's breast within one hour of birth compared to 38.6% in baseline. Newborn check-up within 24 hours of delivery increased from 14.4% in 2002 to 27.3% in 2004. Postnatal check-up of mothers by trained providers within three days of delivery rose from 2.4% in 2002 to 27.3% in 2004. Knowledge of the mothers on at least two postnatal danger signs increased by 17.2%, i.e. from 47.1% in 2002 to 64.3% in 2004. Knowledge of mothers on at least three postnatal danger signs also showed an increase of 16%. Essential newborn-care practices, such as drying and wrapping the baby immediately after birth, initiation of breastmilk within one hour of birth, and early postnatal newborn check-up, improved in the intervention areas. Increased community awareness helped improve maternal and newborn-care practices at the household level. Lessons learnt from implementation revealed that door-to-door visits by community health workers, using community registers as job-aids, were effective in identifying pregnant women and following them through pregnancy to the postnatal periods.
Syed
Uzma
U
Sang Newborn Lives, Save the Children-USA, 2000 M St. NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20036, USA. usyed@dc.savechildren.org
Asiruddin
S k
Sk
Helal
M S I
MS
Mannan
Imteaz I
II
Murray
John
J
D000328:Adult; D001459:Bangladesh; D001942:Breast Feeding / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007224:Infant Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D007229:Infant Welfare; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008427:Maternal Health Services / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D009035:Mothers / Q000193:education / Q000523:psychology; D011181:Postnatal Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D011247:Pregnancy; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires