Dear CHIFA and HIFA-Zambia members
This paper concludes: 'Training both Traditional Birth Attendants and CHWs in providing community-based newborn care and appropriate referrals could improve care-seeking and prevent newborn mortality in rural Zambia.' Citation and abstract below. The full text is unfortunately restricted-access and therefore is unavailable to many of us.
CITATION: Care-Seeking Behavior for Newborns in Rural Zambia
Lucy Thairu, Hanna Gehling, Sarah Kafwanda, Kojo Yeboah-Antwi, Davidson H. Hamer & Karsten Lunze
Maternal and Child Health Journal volume 26, pages1375–1383 (2022)Cite this article
Published: 14 January 2022
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10995-021-03329-7
ABSTRACT
Objectives: Mothers in resource-limited areas face barriers in initiating care for ill newborns, leading to delays that may contribute to newborn mortality. This qualitative study conducted in rural Lufwanyama District in Zambia aimed to (1) explore mothers’ healthcare-seeking related to newborn illness and (2) identify reasons for delaying care-seeking for ill newborns.
Methods: We examined the perspectives of 60 mothers and 77 grandmothers of children under three years of age in 14 focus group discussions as part of the Lufwanyama Integrated Neonatal and Child Health Program study. We conducted a thematic analysis of verbatim transcripts using dedicated software.
Results: Mothers and grandmothers were generally able to identify newborn danger signs and established a hierarchy of care-seeking based on the perceived severity of danger signs. However, inability to afford transportation, inaccessible health care facilities, high costs of medication prescribed at the health clinics, lack of respectful treatment and fear of newborns dying in the hospital prevented participants from seeking timely care. As traditional birth attendants (TBAs) and community health care workers (CHWs) have limited roles in newborns care beyond the immediate delivery setting, mothers often resorted to traditional healers for newborn care.
Conclusions: Based on cultural beliefs and influenced by traditions, mothers in Lufwanyama have developed hierarchical strategies to seek care for ill newborns. Barriers to treatment at health facilities often resulted in traditional care. Training both TBAs and CHWs in providing community-based newborn care and appropriate referrals could improve care-seeking and prevent newborn mortality in rural Zambia.
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Best wishes, Neil
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is global coordinator of Healthcare Information For All - www.hifa.org - a global health community with more than 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting on six global forums in four languages in official relations with WHO. HIFA brings stakeholders together to accelerate progress towards universal access to reliable healthcare information. Twitter: @hifa_org neil@hifa.org
