THE EFFECT OF POSTPARTUM HOME CARE ON MATERNAL PRACTICES IN INFANT CARE

Mothers are the firstattentive for infants, any factor may have impact on mother health, will affect wellbeing of infantandconsequently community health. The aim of this research was to identify the effect of post partum home care on mothers’ practices in infant care. This randomized, controlled clinical trial study was conducted at a health center in Tehran city in 2011. The sample study included 200 mothers who had attended to Akbar Abad health care center with the purpose of screening test for their infants. They were equally randomized into two case and control groups (100 in each group).Control group mothers received second and third post partum care in health care center while case group received their post partum cares at their home. Data collection tools were questionnaire, checklist, growthcharts, barometers, babyscales, thermometers and meters. The questionnaire was aboutdemographic information of participantsand the quality of mothers’ practices in infant care. Data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics (Chi-square tests, Mann-WhitneyandWilcoxon) by usingSPSS 18.0and data with p<0.05 were significant. In this study the most of mothers were aged 20-29 years old(59%).After intervention, averagescores of maternal practices in infant care was statistically different (for homevisitgroup 11.59±2.00 andcontrols 9.58±2.28, p<0.001). Maternal practices between two groups was statistically different in dimensions of breastfeeding, care of cord, supplementation, pacifieruse and exposure tocigarette, but in Swaddling and milk complement use w as not statistically different. Postpartum home care has positive effect on maternal practices in infant care. So, post partum health care is recommended to health care providers.