Abstract

Introduction: It is known that mother/child deaths can be prevented by having safe births and taking routine postnatal home care. The aim of this study is to evaluate safety of births and postnatal home care visits of mothers having 0-11 month babies in the Center of Aydın.
Methods: A cross-sectional design was used to study a group of 806 mothers. Multistage sampling method was used. Health stations was taken as cluster units. One rural-one urban health station from ten health-centers was selected by random sampling method. Safety of births, type of births, complications after births, home visits by health personel at postpartum period were asked.
Results: Unsafe births was 6,0% in Aydin. It was found that family income, mother?s age/occupation/educational level, social security, number of children, father?s occupation/educational level and household size, effects the safety of births. 59,9% of women were visited by widwives at the postpartum period and mean number of visits were 2,0 ±1,7. At this period 9,4% of women had complications, and these complications were two times greater at unsafe births.
Conclusion: Although Aydın is in the west part of Turkey, unsafe births and inadequate postpartum home visits are seen. In order to prevent these problems, health centers must take more active role.

Key words: Postnatal care, childbirth at home, postpartum period

Article Language: Turkish English