Impact of Antenatal Care on Postnatal Outcomes among Postnatal Women in a Selected District Hospital, Assam

Introduction: Maternal mortality rate in developing countries has almost defied the advance made by health care facilities. Such unfortunate deaths can be barred radically by providing state of the art antenatal, natal and postnatal care. This study is designed to recognize the impact of antenatal care on the outcome of the postnatal women in relation with a number of key parameters. Furthermore, it also aims to understand the association between antenatal cares with a setof selected demographic variables. Methods: This study was undertaken by adopting System Model as the conceptual framework. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 100 postnatal women in a selected hospital in Assam. Semi structured interview schedule, record analysis and physical assessment proforma were used to collect information. Results: Most of the postnatal women had at least three antenatal visits for complete physical and obstetrical examination. However, hemoglobin and other routine blood investigations, urine testing and USG were found only for few. Iron and folic acid supplementation was not received by some postnatal women. Adverse postnatal outcomes present among the postnatal women were maternal hypertension (4%); PPH (6%), maternal distress (14%), and fetal distress (28%), still birth (8%), neonatal death (1%) and low birth weight (22%). Conclusion: Significant association was found between occupation and total family income of the postnatal women with the number of antenatal checkup. Numbers of antenatal visit and live birth were found to have a direct association with complete obstetrical examination and birth weight, Hb estimation and PPH, occupation and birth weight.