Antenatal care practices among the women with children under five-years of age in an eastern Nepal village: A cross sectional study

Abstract

Background: Antenatal care has proven to be an effective way to reduce maternal mortality and save the life of newborn. Nepal also follows the World Health Organization's recommendations of initiation of four antenatal care visits that has helped in decreasing the maternal mortality of the country. Still, the country has to do a lot in improving the antenatal care provision. Objective: The objective of this study was to fi nd out the antenatal care practices among the women with children less than fi ve years of age in a district of eastern Nepal. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among residents of Aurabani village of Sunsari district. Non probability convenient sampling technique was used to collect data from 15th January to 30th January, 2015. Data of 100 women having children less than fi ve years of age were collected and analyzed in descriptive and inferential ways. Results: Women with nuclear family are more likely to have antenatal care visits (73.8%) compared to women with joint family (66.7%). The study showed that attendance of antenatal care visits among the educated women was higher (71.8%) than those illiterate (66.7%). In the study, 84.8% of women of primi-gravida completed antenatal care visit which was signifi cantly higher than women with multi gravida (59.3%) (p <0.05). Further, 83.1% of respondents who completed tetanus toxoid injections had not walked <30 meters distance for health services which was signifi cantly higher than those walking >30 meters distance (52.9%). An almost similar trend was found among pregnant women taking iron tablets and vitamin A. Furthermore, walking distance shows stronger association with women taking albendazole during pregnancy (p <0.001). Conclusion: A large percentage of women completed all four recommended antenatal visits. Women and their husbands who were educated placed high importance on antenatal visits. Gravida of the pregnancy was also related to the antenatal care visit. High number of primi-gravida women completed antenatal care visits than women with multigravida. Use of medicines like iron tablets, albendazole tablets, vitamin A and tetanus toxoid injection was directly related with the walking distance to the health center.

Maternal health services utilization among mothers in a rural municipality

“…The finding is comparable to the study done in Sunsari, Nepal, where 73(73%) postpartum mothers received vitamin A. 14 Regarding the practice of breastfeeding, our study shows 106(60%) initiated breastfeeding within one h of birth, higher than the study conducted in Kapilvastu, and also the National representative survey was done in 21 districts of Nepal which showed that 86(45%) and 426(42%) breastfed within 1 h of birth, respectively. 17,19 Regarding the use of contraception, the present study found that 100(56%) mothers Journal of Patan Academy of Health Sciences.…”

“…3 Similarly, the result of our study found that 157(88%) mothers had taken the anthelminthic drug for deworming; this finding is similar to a study done in Sunasari, Nepal where 90(90%) received albendazole tablet. 14 The finding is in contrast with the Journal of Patan Academy of Health Sciences. 2021Apr;8(1):121-131.…”

“…Similar two studies done in the eastern part of Nepal found 181(87%) and 78(78%) women had taken two doses of tetanus injection respectively. 13,14 Study conducted in Gorkha, Nepal found lower utilization, 69(66%) took two doses of vaccine 15 . This may be due to more ANC coverage in our study which corresponds with national statistics, NDHS 2016 which revealed that overall, 89% of recent live births were protected against neonatal tetanus.…”

A Cross-sectional study to explore the challenges faced by Myanmar women in accessing antenatal care services

“…The bivariate analysis also revealed that 50% of women with one child under 5five years used ANC more than four times, which chimes with another study conducted in an eastern village of Nepal [18,29]. The logistic regression analysis shows that women with higher education are four times more likely to use ANC than women with no education.…”

Decolonising social work with Nepali women

“…However, missing in such discussions is a critical understanding of how the intersectionality of social, cultural, religious, economic and political practices creates an androcentric space that not only dehumanises Nepali women but also hinders their overall empowerment and emancipation. As shown in Figure 1, and discussed below in detail, such androcentric space not only undermines Nepali women's identities such that they are considered less rational, less educated and not 'men' (Acharya, 2017: 198), but it also limits their daily identities to daughters, wives or mothers (Acharya, 2020b;Morgan and Niraula, 1995;Shrestha and Gartoulla, 2015;Subedi, 2010). Despite this, as Bourdieu's (1977: 169) 'doxa' suggests, the discriminated and oppressed positionality of Nepali women is 'undiscussed, unnamed, [and] admitted without argument or scrutiny'.…”