Effect of Co-empowering Both Mother and Mother-in-Law on the Prenatal, Delivery, Postnatal Knowledge and Practices in the Far West Region of Nepal

Authors

  • Dipak Prasad Tiwari CARE Nepal
  • Khagendra Bhatta Program Officer, FAYA Nepal
  • Noor Tirmizi Program Officer, CARE USA, Atlanta GA
  • Nicky Roth Intern, CARE USA, Atlanta GA
  • Nirmala Sharma Health Coordinator, CARE Nepal
  • Ram Sharan Pyakurel Area Program Manager, CARE Nepal
  • Deepak Paudel LMU Center for International Health, Nepal
  • Khrist Roy Technical Advisor, CARE USA, Atlanta GA

Keywords:

MIL/DIL Meeting, Birth preparedness plans and Co-empowerment

Abstract

This study compares prenatal, delivery, and postnatal knowledge and practices of daughter-in-law/mother-in-law (DIL/MIL) pairs who participated in an intervention meeting with those DIL/MIL pairs compared to where only DIL participated in the Female Community Health Volunteer (FCHV) meeting in Kailali district, far-west region of Nepal. The intervention was a 1−2 h meeting before the delivery with the DIL/MIL and the FCHV. The topics covered during the meeting were based on the Ministry of Health (MoH) Nepal’s existing programs on maternal, newborn, and child health including topics related to: antenatal care, skilled birth attendants, delivery at health facility, postnatal care, and newborn care including birth preparedness plans. A sample of 120 DILs, who had given birth in the past 3 months and their MILs were chosen from 10 randomly selected VDCs within the district of Kailali. Sixty DIL/MIL pairs (both also participated in the FCHV meeting) are defined as the intervention group and 60 DIL/MIL pairs (only DIL participated in the FCHV meeting) from the same VDCs, are defined as the comparison group. MIL/DIL pairs participated in the intervention meeting when DILs were at least 3 months pregnant; within 3 months of delivery the same pairs were interviewed. Following data collection, SPSS version 20 was used for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to understand the intervention effect.Majority of DILs in the intervention (41.0%) and comparison (55.0%) groups were between the ages of 20 and 24 years. Majority of MILs in the intervention group were 50 years of age or older and 32.0% were between the ages of 38 and 49 years. Over all, socio-demographics for both DILs and MILs in the intervention and comparison groups were largely similar. Regarding the service utilization practices, 69% of DILs in the intervention group had their delivery in a health facility, while 53.0% of DILs in the comparison group delivered their baby in health facility. A higher percentage of DILs in the intervention group attended a postnatal (61.0%) and neonatal (61.0%) checkup compared to the comparison group, 51.7 and 48.0%, respectively. Fifty percent of the mothers reported using family planning methods in the intervention group compared to only 36% in the comparison group after delivery to increase birth spacing. Multivariate analysis found that households where both DIL and MIL together participated, are more likely to have a birth preparedness plan (Odds Ratio (OR) = 5.4), better ANC knowledge (OR = 5.66), Neonatal knowledge (OR = 2.69) and are likely to practice the newly gained neonatal knowledge (OR = 3.87), compared to households where the MIL did not participate. DIL/MIL participation in the intervention shows greater positive effect across all MCH outcomes. Thus, co-empowerment as defined for the purposes of this study has the potential to greatly enhance the effect of MCH interventions on MCH outcomes and was shown to be an effective methodology for channeling greater MCH interventions effect.

Keywords: Mil/Dil Meeting, Birth Preparedness Plans and Co-Empowerment

 

 


Author Biography

  • Dipak Prasad Tiwari, CARE Nepal

    Project Manager, Saving Mothers' and Infants' Lives(SMILE) Project

    CARE Nepal

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

2014-11-20

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 3 (2014)

Section

Research/Review Articles

License

Declaration and Copyright Transfer Form

(to be completed by authors)

I/ We, the undersigned author(s) of the submitted manuscript, hereby declare, that the above manuscript which is submitted for publication in the STM Journals(s), is notpublished already in part or whole (except in the form of abstract) in any journal or magazine for private or public circulation, and, is not under consideration of publication elsewhere.

  • I/We will not withdraw the manuscript after 1 week of submission as I have read the Author Guidelines and will adhere to the guidelines.
  • I/We Author(s ) have niether given nor will give this manuscript elsewhere for publishing after submitting in STM Journal(s).
  • I/ We have read the original version of the manuscript and am/ are responsible for the thought contents embodied in it. The work dealt in the manuscript is my/ our own, and my/ our individual contribution to this work is significant enough to qualify for authorship.
  • I/We also agree to the authorship of the article in the following order:

Author’s name

 

1. ________________

2. ________________

3. ________________

_______________

We  Author(s) tick this box and would request you to consider it as our signature as we agree to the terms of this Copyright Notice, which will apply to this submission if and when it is published by this journal.