Abstract
BackgroundCultural practice have often overlooked when providing maternal and child health care services. Low birth weight is the second cause of neonatal mortality in the world but it is a major factor in a developing country such as Indonesia. The purpose of this study is to predict the neonatal mortality among low birth weight babies in Aceh Province Indonesia.MethodsUnmatched case control study was conducted using data from year 2010 to 2012 in 8 selected districts of Aceh Province Indonesia. A total of 500 samples were obtained. There were 250 of the samples died in neonatal period (case group) and 250 who were alive (control group). There were 26 variables studied and were grouped into 4 factors: neonatal factor, maternal factor, maternal and child health services and neonatal care practices. The data was analysed using bivariate logistic regression and multivariate logistic regression.ResultsThere were 13 out of 26 variables found as determinant factors of neonatal mortality among low birth weight babies in Aceh Province. The predictors found in this study were: boy (aOR1.80, 95% CI: 1.09-2.96), moderate low birth weight (aOR17.84, 95% CI: 6.20-51.35), preterm (aOR1.84, 95% CI: 1.07- 3.17), presence of maternal illnesses (aOR1.87, 95% CI: 1.06-3.30), too short or too long birth interval (aOR1.80, 95% CI: 1.20-2.91), inappropriate antenatal care (aOR2.29, 95% CI: 1.34-3.91), inappropriate neonatal visit (aOR7.04, 95% CI: 3.67-13.49), not practicing kangaroo mother care (aOR15.32, 95% CI: 2.85-82.56), not using warm bottle padding (aOR20.70, 95% CI: 6.32-67.80), not practicing ‘didaring’ (aOR4.33, 95% CI: 1.83-10.19), late initiation of breastfeeding (aOR2.03, 95% CI: 1.09-3.80), discard colostrums (aOR3.53, 95% CI: 1.93-6.43) and not practicing exclusive breastfeeding (aOR5.58, 95% CI: 2.89-10.77).ConclusionsCultural practices are strongly seen among Acehnese. Inappropriate antenatal care and neonatal care, late initiation of breastfeeding, discarding colostrums and not practicing exclusive breastfeeding were related to cultural practices. Improving knowledge heat preservation to prevent hypothermia using Kangaroo mother care, warm bottle padding and ‘didaring’ were proven methods to reduce neonatal mortality. Strengthening of health services in screening for high risk cases and anticipate intervention tailored to cultural practices are important to decrease neonatal mortality among low birth weight.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2393-14-342) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Cultural practice have often overlooked when providing maternal and child health care services
There were 250 cases of low birth weight babies died during neonatal period and 250 cases for control group who survived during neonatal period
There were 4 components on determinant factors used as independent variables: neonatal factor, maternal factor, maternal-child health services and neonatal care practice
Summary
Cultural practice have often overlooked when providing maternal and child health care services. Cultural practice is one of the important factors that the healthcare workers need to focus when providing maternal and child health care services. It involved the management of most illnesses at any stages for an individual who lives in society with strong cultural beliefs. Even though the young are not keen to practice cultural practice, they have no choice but to follow since they live with their family and especially when the bonding as part of extended family is strong They do that for the purpose of not offending their parents or society. The common reasons for cultural practicing were due to self-belief, convenience, family pressure and to please the elders [1,4]
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