Mothers' Behaviors in Relation to Pregnancy and Childbirth in Kathmandu, Nepal-A Hospital Based Study

Abstract

Background: Mothers’ behaviors are important indicators of child health outcomes during pregnancy and child birth. Behaviors of mother are also associated with numerous interrelating socio-economic and cultural factors and physical environment. The study aim was to assess different behaviors of mothers while pregnant and childbirth. Methods: Cross-sectional survey was carried out in between July 2016 to June 2017. Data was collected from 255 mothers, who attended to give birth in Helping Hands Community Hospital, Kathmandu, by using interview schedule with face-to-face interview. Descriptive analysis was done and presented in the form of percentage, chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test. Results: In this study, minimum age of 18 years and maximum 41 years mothers with the mean (standard deviation) age was ± 23.35 years. Among the total women, 98% received ANC service while pregnant and 96% received Tetanus Toxoid vaccine. Among the total women, 8.2% of pregnancies were unwanted and in total, about 20% of women band the food items while pregnant. Among the respondents who delivered previous baby, only 70.4% gave birth with assistant of health workers, doctors or nurses. Nearly half of the women (48.5%) preferred home delivery in previous pregnancy and about 86% had more than 2 years gap between previous and current pregnancies. Education status and TT vaccine injected by mothers showed significant difference (Fisher’s exact test=0.001, 0<0.05), where as education in relation to ANC checkup, band food items, wanted pregnancy, rest during pregnancy, preference of place for delivery found insignificant. Conclusion: Mothers’ behaviors like ANC visit, receiving TT injection during pregnancy, food beliefs, choosing place of delivery are the important factors for the outcome of the health of both mother and child. *Corresponding author: Arun Kumar Koirala, Department of Health and Allied Sciences, Pokhara University, Pokhara, Nepal, Tel: +9779849264178; E-mail: arunkoirala@gmail.com Received: September 08, 2018; Accepted: October 15, 2018; Published: October 22, 2018 Citation: Koirala AK (2018) Mothers’ Behaviors in Relation to Pregnancy and Childbirth in Kathmandu, Nepal-A Hospital Based Study. J Preg Child Health 5: 394. doi:10.4172/2376-127X.1000394 Copyright: © 2018 Koirala AK. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.