Newborn Care Practices in Rural Communities of Nawalparasi District, Nepal

Abstract

Most of the new born deaths in the developing countries occur due to lack of access to care, as majority of the deliveries occur at home. Even deliveries conducted in health facilities are prone to suffering from traditional care practice after discharge from health facilities. Most of these deaths could be avoided with changes in antenatal, delivery and newborn care practices. This study was conducted to explore the newborn care practices related to cord care, thermal care and breast feeding in rural setting and to identify socio-demographic, antenatal and delivery care factors associated with these practices. A cross sectional study in rural setting of Nawalparasi district included 296 women who had delivered live baby at home or discharged within 24 hours of delivery from hospital proceeding four months of data collection. Chi squire test was applied to compare sociodemographic, antenatal and delivery care factors associated with cord care, thermal care and breast feeding practices. Of the total 296 mother interviewed, only 65.54% have completed ANC visit at least 4 times and 29.05% have received counselling on newborn care during pregnancy. More than half deliveries (53.38%) were home deliveries and Clean Home Delivery Kit was used only one third (39.91%) of these deliveries. Of the three selected newborn care practices, clean cord keeping practice was found in only one fourth (25.70%) of deliveries. However early initiation of breast feeding and delayed bathing practice was found in about half of the deliveries (51.35% and 58.45% respectively). There is strong need to implement the community-based interventions to improve the new born care practices in community level and to reduce the high-risk newborn care practices like unsafe cord care, delayed breast feeding, early bathing, prelacteal feeding and discarding colostrum need through the community level health workers and volunteers.

Key words: Newborn care, Safe cord care, Early breast feeding, Thermal care, Delayed bathing.