Abstract
Objective: The aim of this study is to find out mother’s knowledge on neonatal danger signs and health seeking behaviour in a tertiary care hospital.
 Methods: A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted among mother’s of infant(below 1 year) attending Department of Paediatrics and Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Saveetha Medical College, Thandalam between January 2021 to April 2021. A semi structured questionnaire was used in this study. The data were entered in Microsoft Excel. The chi square values were determined, P<0.05 was considered significant.
 Results: Among the 273 respondents,102(37.36%)of mothers were found to have good knowledge on neonatal dangersigns.161 mothers had sick neonate who need medical attention. Of the 161, 146 (90.68%) mothers sought health facility for help and had their baby treated. Factors that were significantly associated with mother’s knowledge on neonatal danger signs were mother’s educational status and occupation, income, husband’s involvement in antenatal and reproductive service, information on neonatal danger signs given after delivery. Significant associated factors for safe health seeking behaviour were mother’s educational status, AN check up, PNC follow up, husband’s involvement, good knowledge on neonatal danger signs.
 Conclusion: The study shows that 37.36% of mothers had good knowledge on neonatal danger signs and 90.68% had safe health seeking behaviour. Despite the low knowledge on neonatal danger signs, mother’s health seeking behaviour was better (90.68%) which might be due to their good antenatal check up, postnatal follow up.
Highlights
The first 28 days of life of a child is considered to be the highest risk period of Neonatal death [1]
The study shows that 37.36% of mothers had good knowledge on neonatal danger signs and 90.68% had safe health seeking behaviour
Despite the low knowledge on neonatal danger signs, mother’s health seeking behaviour was better (90.68%) which might be due to their good antenatal check up, postnatal follow up
Summary
The first 28 days of life of a child is considered to be the highest risk period of Neonatal death [1]. 27 million babies are born in India each year, which accounts for 20% of global birth, of which 1 million dies before completing the first four weeks of life which accounts for nearly 25% of neonatal death worldwide [2,3,4]. Lack of mother’s knowledge on neonatal danger signs and poor health seeking practices in the first four weeks of life were found to be associated with a higher risk of neonatal death and considered to be significant barrier for early identification and adequate treatment for neonate with severe illness [8]
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