Abstract:

Background: World health organization stated that postnatal care is defined as a care given to the mother and her newborn baby immediately after the birth of the placenta and for the first six weeks of life. Majority of maternal and neonatal deaths occur during childbirth and the postpartum period. Scaling up of maternal and newborn health through proper postnatal care services is the best way of reducing maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity.

Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 140 mothers who gave birth at Kambarage health center and attending their post-natal visit on their 6th week (42nd day). Non-random sampling specifically convenience sampling was used to obtain study participants, A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Data was entered in Excel for cleaning and validation and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Chi square test was applied to identify association between birth related factor variables and awareness on PNC variables with compliance status to post-natal visits, A p-value of <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.

Result: This study demonstrated that Complete utilization of postnatal care service is low 42%. Place of delivery, time duration of stay at hospital for more than 24 hours after delivery, parity, quality of ANC attendance, awareness of complications and danger signs of puerperium, awareness on recommended PNC schedule, and awareness of perceived importances of postnatal visit were found to be statistically significant for good compliance to PNC service.