Preterm At Home

2.2.0 Current preterm babies care practices at home (Study II).

Appropriate management of babies born preterm at the community level is very crucial for their survival especially during the first days of life. There are tested and low-cost interventions that are applicable at home for the management of preterm babies. These interventions includes but not limited to thermal care, breast feeding, infection prevention (hygienic cord, general cleanliness and skin care).

According Morais et al (2009) in their research stated that “the thematic universe of premature child care is revealed through general aspects of caring for the premature infant, the way the caregiver perceives the premature infant, and how this infant is given care” (p.26).

However, basic and simple hygiene practices at home such as proper hand washing before handling the baby, use of clean clothing to wrap the baby and maintaining a clean environment are well known but poorly practice at home.

According to Seward et al (2012) as cited in Lawn et al (2013), pointed out that preterm babies born by poor families at home using clean kits and improved hygienic practices such as hand washing have shown to reduce preterm mortality. A study done by Gondwe et al (2014) mentioned that, few women during FGDs reported that maintaining good hygiene such as washing of the baby’s clothes, keeping the house environment clean and controlling dust by sprinkling water around the house surrounding can prevent preterm babies infections.

A community-based cluster-randomised trial study done by Arifeen et al (2012) on the effect of cord cleansing with chlorhexidine on neonatal mortality in rural Bangladesh reported neonatal cord cleansing with chlorhexidine can reduce neonatal mortality due to reduction in cord sepsis. The benefit that will derived from mothers being encouraged to use Chlorhexidine on the umbilical cord at home will serve as behaviour change agent to prevent mothers from using unhygienic/harmful substances on the cord since worldwide and more especially in the African certain, something must definitely be used to apply the umbilical

In the study, the convulsions, hypothermia and movements only when stimulated were the least known danger signs mentioned representing 5%. This suggest that, knowledge of key neonatal danger signs is poor among the study participants and therefore there is the need for health workers to promote education especially during antenatal and as well as those mothers discharged from health facilities after birth.

Another study was carried out by Alex-Hart, Ditimi & Opara (2014) on mothers’ recognition of newborn danger signs and health seeking behaviour in Yenagoa Metropolis in Bayelsa State, Nigeria also reported poor knowledge of newborn danger signs amongst mothers. Less than 50% of the mothers could recognise one key danger sign and the common danger signs mentioned were fast breathing and convulsions. The least danger sign mentioned by mothers in the study was movement only when stimulated which recorded 19.9% response