Assessment of Mothers' Knowledge about Premature infants with cerebral palsy in the Maternity and Children Hospital in Diwaniyah City

Background: Cerebral palsy is one of the most common health problems for premature babies. About 1 to 2 out of every 1,000 babies born at full term will develop cerebral palsy. For babies born at less than 37 weeks of gestation, the risk is twice as high, nearly 100 out of 1,000 live births. Objectives: Assessing mothers' knowledge Premature infants with cerebral palsy. Finding a relationship between demographic information and Premature infants with cerebral palsy.  Methodology: A descriptive questionnaire-based study conducted at mothers from (20 October 2021 to the 17 May 2022). Non probability (purposive) sample of 50 of women's selected from maternity and Child Hospital in Diwaniyah City. The demographic characteristics were obtained through interview with the mothers. The statistical analysis program SPSS was used to analyze the data entered in the form of an excel table and by using the Chi-square for statistical analysis. Results and Discussion: The results of show that there is association between mother' knowledge with their demographic data at p value of less than (0.05). Except item (Occupational) there is no association between mother' knowledge with demographic data at p value of more than (0.05). Conclusion: The study showed that mothers have insufficient knowledge about Premature infants with cerebral palsy. And the factors that effects such as, mother's education, mother's age, and economic level are relation with the mother's knowledge. Recommendations: Organizing educational courses for mothers. Increasing the cultural awareness of mothers and families. Establishing educational programs for pregnant women that play a key role in avoiding complications and reducing the risk of Premature infants with cerebral palsy. Creating recommendations on radio and television that contribute to raising the awareness of mothers. There is a need for more large sample studies to generalize these results, as well as efforts must be adopted by the Iraqi Ministry of Health to establish educational programs.