Birth preparedness: studying its effectiveness in improving maternal health in urban slums of Jamnagar, Gujarat

Abstract

Background: Maternal health and healthy outcome of a pregnancy are the core focus of all the programmes related to maternal and child health. Most of the causes of maternal morbidity and mortality are preventable. So we need to introduce new strategies according to the need of beneficiaries to reduce the underlying causes which ultimately lead to morbidities or complications during pregnancy. Birth preparedness is a kind of strategy which can help the mothers to plan out their pregnancy to combat the complications arising during pregnancy, childbirth or puerperium. The aims and objectives were to study the birth preparedness amongst the women, to study effect of various socio demographic determinants on birth preparedness and to find out relation between maternal morbidity and mortality with birth preparedness. Methods: Cross sectional study was conducted in Jamnagar. 450 women were selected by 30 cluster sampling. Data analysis was done with Microsoft office Excel and SPSS 20, Chi square test was applied. Results: 11.33% women were fully prepared, 67.33% were partially prepared while 96 women were not prepared at all. Education, place of delivery, parity and knowledge of danger signs has statistically significant association with birth preparedness in cases of both maternal mortalities, women were not at all prepared. Conclusions: Birth preparedness practices need to be improved. Education, parity, place of delivery, knowledge about danger signs are associated with birth preparedness practices. Birth preparedness can help in decreasing maternal morbidities and mortalities.