Background: The study described the perspectives and experiences of women and health
care providers with regard to use of postnatal care and reasons why some women do not
attend postnatal care in order to identify strategies for improving postnatal care services.
Methods: An explorative, descriptive, and contextual research design was used. In step one
data was collected with semi-structured interviews with seventeen (17) women who attended
postnatal care. The second sample consisted of ten (10) women who did not attend
postnatal care but brought their babies for well-baby clinic. Focus groups were conducted
with midwives who offered postnatal care to women. The midwives of the first focus group
worked in the hospital while the second focus group worked at a filter clinic.
Results: In step one, some women indicated positive experiences but most women had
negative experiences about postnatal care. The positive experiences were related to the
satisfaction of the women with good services received and not encountering problems with
staff's care. Common concerns mentioned in step one and two about postnatal care were
shortage of skilled midwives, need for staff to be trained on postnatal care services, lack of
confidentiality, poor infrastructure and non-integration of maternal and child services.
Reasons for not attending postnatal care that were mentioned by women in step three were
inaccessibility of the health care facilities, poor roads infrastructure, lack of knowledge about
postnatal services and socio-cultural factors.
Conclusion: Based on the findings, strategies to improve postnatal care were developed:
Firstly, the midwives need to be trained on postnatal care and highlighted on current
postnatal policies and guidelines. Secondly, woman and baby should attend the postnatal
care at the health facility. Thirdly, community health nurses and trained community health
workers should visit the women at home soon after birth of the babies. Fourthly, postnatal
care should be provided at the family and community level by a trained and skilled midwife
during the early postnatal period. Fifthly, combination of care facility and home visit - when
the woman and baby are discharged from the hospital, follow- up need to be done at home
by the midwife. Lastly, a comprehensive integration of postnatal services with other
programmes needs to be enforced and supported by the programme management and
policy makers. / MCur, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/15913 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Qheku, Malisema Marcelina Nthalala |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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