Place of Child Birth and its Associated Factors in Shitganga Municipality, Arghakhanchi district, Nepal

Abstract

Introduction: Maternal and newborn mortality are tragic facts that occur due to complications occur during pregnancy and deliveries. Although, there are improvements in institutional birth services, still more than one-third of women in Nepal give birth at home due to various circumstances. The main objective of this study is to identify the factors associated with place of child birth.

Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted in Shitganga Municipality of Arghakhanchi district. Using simple random sampling, 342 women who delivered in last one year were interviewed with structured questionnaire. Ethical approval was taken from the Institutional Review Committee (IRC) of Institute of Medicine, and written informed consent was obtain from respondent. Data analysis was performed in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

Results: Study shows that municipality has 81.9% of institutional delivery. Among them more than 50% of institutional delivery occurs outside of municipality. Factors like age, type of family, occupation of husband, education of women and husband, parity of women, knowledge and practice of ANC services and time distance from health facility were establish significantly associated at p value <0.05 with place of child birth.

Conclusions: As per the study, ANC and delivery practice of women was good. Study also conclude that joint family, formal schooling of women, husband’s occupation, experience of danger signs during delivery and time distance of 60 minutes or more have significant association with place of child birth.