Maternal knowledge of essential newborn care in rural Zambia

1 August, 2020

Dear HIFA-Zambia and CHIFA colleagues,

Here is a new paper from Health Care for Women International. 'This study is the first to assess maternal newborn care knowledge and maternity waiting homes use in rural Zambia'. Unfortunately the full text is restricted access, but you can request it from the authors through ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342912649_Maternal_knowledge_of...

CITATION: Maternal knowledge of essential newborn care in rural Zambia

Julie M. Buser, Cheryl A. Moyer, Carol J. Boyd, Davy Zulu, Alice Ngoma-Hazemba, Jessy Taona Mtenje

Health Care for Women International

Received 25 Oct 2019, Accepted 08 Jun 2020, Published online: 13 Jul 2020

CITATION: https://doi.org/10.1080/07399332.2020.1781125

ABSTRACT

Maternity waiting homes (MWHs) may offer an intervention to improve newborn outcomes in rural Zambia. This study compared maternal knowledge of newborn care for women referred from facilities with and without MWHs. Topics assessed included: (1) umbilical cord care; (2) thermal and skin care; (3) nutrition, and; (4) prevention of diarrhea, and; (5) newborn danger signs prompting care-seeking. A two-group comparison design with a convenience sample was employed using a face-to-face interviews at one district hospital. Descriptive, inferential, and multivariate analyses were employed to compare knowledge. Overall, mothers demonstrated newborn care knowledge in accordance with World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for newborn health and there were no significant differences in maternal knowledge of newborn care practices among MWH and non-MWH users. Younger mothers more often did not know about umbilical cord care, newborn skin care, and newborn danger signs. MWH users went more often for antenatal care than non-MWH users. In both groups, we found as the number of ANC visits increases, odds of answering “Don’t know” decreases. This study is the first to assess maternal newborn care knowledge and MWH use in rural Zambia. Both MWH users and non-users in the rural district were knowledgeable about essential newborn care.

Best wishes, Neil

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HIFA-Zambia profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is the coordinator of HIFA-Zambia and the HIFA campaign (Healthcare Information For All - www.hifa.org ). Twitter: @hifa_org FB: facebook.com/HIFAdotORG neil@hifa.org

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