Maternal health status in terms of utilisation of antenatal, natal and postnatal services in a Periurban setting of Islamabad: A community based survey.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the maternal health status in terms of antenatal, natal and postnatal care.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study was conducted at Shifa College of Medicine, Islamabad, Pakistan, from August 2015 to February 2016, and comprised married women living in Nurpur Shahan, a peri-urban community..A systemic random sampling method was used to raise the study sample. Only members of the household aged18 to 45 years and permanent residents of that area were selected. SPSS 21 was used to analyse the collected data.

RESULTS

There were 1,275 participants in the study with an overall mean age of 31.6±8 years. The mean age of marriage was 19±3.6 years while the mean age of first childbirth was 20.8±3.6 years. Besides, 950(74.5%) participants had undergone an antenatal check-up. Moreover, 685(53.7%) underwent delivery in a hospital, 433(34%) had postnatal check-up, and 432(33.9%) were using contraception. Participants who had undergone hospital delivery were 18.7 times more likely to have taken prenatal care and 6.9 times more likely to utilise postnatal care compared to participants who had not utilised antenatal care (p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Most of the participants did not give significant importance to postnatal care.