Original Research Article
Year: 2019 | Month: June | Volume: 9 | Issue: 6 | Pages: 265-270
Knowledge and Attitude about Safe Motherhood Practices among Pregnant Women in Belagavi, Karnataka
Dr. Pooja S. Dhagavkar1, Dr. Anita Dalal2, Dr. Amit Nilgar3, Dr Mubashir Angolkar4
1Student, Department of Public Health, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital, Belagavi, Karnataka India
2Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital, Belagavi, Karnataka, India.
3Reader, Department of Orthodontics and Craniofacial Orthopaedics, KLE’S Vishwanath Katti Institute of Dental Sciences, Belagavi, Karnataka, India.
4Professor and HOD, Department of Public Health, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital, Belagavi, Karnataka, India.
Corresponding Author: Dr. Pooja S. Dhagavkar
ABSTRACT
Background: Pregnancy and childbirth are essential for existence of the entire human race but complications during this period leading to termination have negative impact on the women mentally, physically and emotionally. To prevent this, “Safe Motherhood Initiative” was launched in 1987 but even then India’s maternal and under-5 mortality remained high which can be attributed to lack of knowledge and poor attitude regarding these practices among pregnant women hence this study was done to assess the level of knowledge and attitude about safe motherhood practices among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics.
Methods: A questionnaire based survey was conducted among 374 pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at a tertiary hospital in Belagavi for 4 months. Sociodemographic data and details of knowledge and attitude about safe motherhood practices were collected using a predesigned pretested questionnaire. Data was entered and analysed using SPSS.
Results: In this study participants’ mean age was 23.9 years, majority of the participants had completed their middle school (20.3%), almost half of the participants were unemployed (53.7%) and more than half of them (67.1%) during their marriage were aged less than 20 years. 84% of the pregnant women had average knowledge while all of them had positive attitude regarding Safe Motherhood Practices.
Conclusions: The need of the hour is to use the positive attitude to increase the knowledge. These findings can be used to plan Health Awareness and Intervention Programs aiming to increase knowledge of pregnant women towards Safe Motherhood Practices.
Key words: Knowledge, Attitude, Safe motherhood, Pregnant, Antenatal.