Publication:

Lower maternal education responsible for resistance in the improvement of delivery practices in rural area of Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India

Background Child birth is a physiological process which can become pathological due to the adoption of unhygienic condition of delivery practices and consequently affect the health and survival of the newborn. The objective of the study was to assess the behavior of pregnant women regarding delivery practices. To assess the relation of maternal education and delivery practices. Design of the Study was a community based cross sectional study.

Methods Field practice area of Rural Health Training Centre, Department of Community Medicine, RMC&H Bareilly. Participants were 110 pregnant women. Multistage random sampling method was used. Statistical analysis was SPSS version 21 used to analyse the data through implementing percentages.

Results Majority of pregnant women (70.9%) delivered at home. Among total home deliveries, 12 (15.4%) deliveries were conducted by trained dais. Dais washed their hands only in 33.3% of home deliveries. Clean surface was used in 16.70 % deliveries. The cord was cut with new blade in 29.5% of deliveries. Sterile cord tie was used in 14.1% deliveries. Nothing was applied on the cord of 15.4% deliveries. Delivery practices were found to be more satisfactory among those women who were educated at least upto high school standard and this difference was found to be highly significant statistically (<0.001) in all the strata of delivery practices.

Conclusions To conclude there is a low percentage of institutional deliveries and very poor delivery practices in rural area of Bareilly. Education definitely has a bearing on delivery practices thus it is need of an hour to educate the women so that they can actively participate in decision making in entire period of pregnancy and delivery.