Factors Associated with Utilization of Postnatal Care Services among Mothers in Remote Villages of Nepal

Background and Objective: The postnatal period, which includes the days and weeks immediately following childbirth, is an important time in the lives of new mothers and their newborns. During this period, there are significant changes affecting mothers’ and newborns’ health. About 70% of women in developing countries do not receive postnatal care and between 60 and 80% of maternal deaths take place during this period. Thus this study aims to find out the utilization status of PNC services and factors associated with utilization of PNC services. Materials and Methods: This study was a community-based cross-sectional study carried out among 280 married women of reproductive age who had delivered babies recently and were between the seventh to one year of the delivery date. The data were collected through structured, pretested questionnaires through the adoption of face-to-face interview techniques. The collected data were entered in Epi-data 3.1 and analysis was done in IBM SPSS 20. Binary logistic regression and multivariate regression analysis were used to observe the association of key factors with PNC service utilization. Results: The proportion of women who had received postnatal care service after delivery was 38.9%. The education of the respondent’s husband (AOR = 8.259, CI: 1.472-46.338), the respondent’s occupation (AOR = 12.847, CI: 1.079-152.924), the distance from the health facility (AOR = 7.273, CI: 2.598-20.358), number of ANC visits (AOR = 6.830, CI: 2.450-19.040) and health problems during the postpartum period (AOR = 6.908, CI: 1.946-24.525) were strongly associated with the PNC service utilization. Conclusion: This study concluded that almost one-third of the women only had PNC services utilized. There is an urgent need for comprehensive maternal health care services that aim at accessible PNC services for the needy population. The outreach PNC services should be provided at the doorstep to reduce the distance to the health facilities and increase access.