Background:Maternal exposure to kitchen fuel smoke may lead to impaired fetal growth.Objective:To study the effect of exposure to various kitchen fuels on birth weight.Methodology:Study type: Retrospective analytical. Study setting: Hospital based.Study Subjects:Mothers and their newborns.Inclusion Criteria:Mothers registered in first trimester with minimum 3 visits, non-anemic, full-term, and singleton delivery.Exclusion Criteria:History of Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (PIH), Diabetes Mellitus (DM), tobacco chewers or mishri users. Sample size: 328 mothers and their new-borne. Study period: Six months. Study tools: Chi-square, Z-test, ANOVA, and binary logistic regression.Results:Effect of confounders on birth weight was tested and found to be non-significant. Mean ± SD of birth weight was 2.669 ± 0.442 in Liquid Petroleium Gas (LPG) users (n = 178), 2.465 ± 0.465 in wood users (n = 94), 2.557 ± 0.603 in LPG + wood users (n = 27) and 2.617 ± 0.470 in kerosene users (n = 29). Infants born to wood users had lowest birth weight and averagely 204 g lighter than LPG users (F = 4.056, P < 0.01). Percentage of newborns with low birth weight (LBW) in wood users was 44.68% which was significantly higher than in LPG users (24.16%), LPG + wood users (40.74%) and in kerosene users (34.48%) (Chi-square = 12.926, P < 0.01). As duration of exposure to wood fuel increases there is significant decline in birth weight (F = 3.825, P < 0.05). By using logistic regression type of fuel is only best predictor.Conclusion:Cooking with wood fuel is a significant risk-factor for LBW, which is modifiable.
Background:
There is a paucity of knowledge regarding challenges faced by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccinators in resource constraint settings like district Shahdol, Central India. Hence, the present study was planned to explore the perceived challenges of vaccinators regarding COVID-19 vaccination.
Methods:
In October 2021, district health authorities conducted a one-day workshop with the auxiliary nurse midwives, staff nurses, and lady health visitors who work as vaccinators. It had three distinct but mutually connected phases. In the first phase, a free listing exercise was performed to list out their perceived challenges that are prominent and representative of their cultural domain. In the second phase, the pile-sorting exercise with the challenges mentioned in the above step was performed to produce similar data in the form of a matrix, based on a perceived similarity between them by multi-dimensional scaling analysis. In the final phase, the transcripts generated during the discussion on the free listing and pile sorting exercises was used for the thematic analysis to find plausible explanations for the findings.
Result:
A total of 15 vaccinators took part in the workshop. In the free listing exercise, a total of 14 items were identified as perceived challenges for COVID-19 vaccinators. The three items with the highest Smith’s S value were overtime duty, no holidays, and lack of monetary incentive. The analysis of pile-sorting suggested that participants clustered their 14 perceived challenges into five groups; 1) beneficiaries related, 2) vaccination schedule related, 3) lack of facilities at vaccination site, 4) lack of monetary incentive, and 5) issues related to digital data handling. Thematic analysis suggested that their main challenges were overtime duty, no monetary incentive, and lack of toilet, food, and transport facility at the session site.
Conclusion:
Vaccinators perceive overtime duty and lack of holidays as their top two challenges and expect monetary incentives for this. The study recommends better basic amenities like toilet facility, sustained and effective community engagement, a monetary incentive, and a better ecosystem for digital data handling for the vaccinators.
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