Abstract:

Background: Mothers who lack knowledge about postpartum complications and their risk factors may be at a higher risk of experiencing adverse outcomes. Limited awareness may prevent early recognition and timely management of complications, leading to prolonged suffering and increased healthcare costs. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the knowledge of post-partum complications and its associated risk factors among women who gave birth at Bugando Medical Centre in Mwanza Tanzania.

Methodology: A hospital based cross sectional study was conducted among postpartum women at Bugando medical Centre. Data was collected by using a questionnaire which was prepared in English and translated into Swahili language and analysis was done through a software application SPSS version 25 were frequencies and percentages were obtained, charts and tables were used to represent data on demographic information and on knowledge of postpartum complications .Also the odds ratio and 95% CI were used to find out the association between knowledge of postpartum complications and its associated risk factors.

Results: About 118(70%) of mothers who gave birth at Bugando medical Centre had poor knowledge while about 51(30%) had a good knowledge on postpartum complications. Also the study found that there are associated risk factors such as the ability to know what is the meaning of postpartum period (p value 0.001), benefits of knowing about post-partum complications (0.001), information on pregnancy related problems during follow up (p value 0.031), and number of times a woman had given birth (p value 0.05) were associated with the level of knowledge of postpartum complications

Conclusion: There was a high level of women who had no enough knowledge about postpartum complications and its risk factors and thus this necessitates the need to increase more strategies towards educating the expectant mothers and mothers who have given birth so as to raise the knowledge regarding post-partum complications and the associated risk factors.