Role of Ashas in Delivering New Born Care Messages to Pregnant and Lactating Mothers in Uttar Pradesh, India

When ASHAs were introduced in NRHM in 2005, one of their primary mandates were to visit homes of newborns as the first program and counsel and deliver relevant messages as envisaged under the Comprehensive Child Survival Program CCSP way back in 2008 in Uttar Pradesh. Since then, tracking of all the deliveries and the related messages given by ASHAs on newborn care to mothers during pregnancy and in the first month after delivery are an integral part of the work of ASHAs in all the primary health care programs operated by the NHM in UP. The current study explores some of the crucial variables of the targeted activities of the ASHAs in type of message delivery on newborn care in four districts of UP. Through this profile, the content and type of messages given by ASHAs in their coverage area is tracked for pregnant women and mothers of newborns. These include both institutional and home deliveries covered by ASHAs through home visits. Further, this also includes number of deliveries escorted by ASHAs in the last 3 months prior to the survey and the number of newborns that they covered through home visits. The relevance of the study assumes significance as data on the details of activities like the content, timing and quality of messages delivered by ASHAs during third trimester birth planning and post partum home visits as per the HBNC guidelines are usually not available in various studies available in the public domain. A total of four districts of Uttar Pradesh were selected using purposive sampling for the study and the data collection was conducted in the selected villages of the respective districts using a pre tested structured questionnaire with both close ended and open ended questions. In addition, in depth interviews were also conducted amongst the ASHAs and a total 250 respondents had participated in the study. The content of message deliveries by ASHAs in the 4 districts in their catchment area was assessed. Most of the ASHAs in all the districts except Saharanpur gave the messages on exclusive breast feeding to both the category of mothers. The newborn care message was better delivered in Saharanpur district as compared to the remaining three districts. Similarly, except Saharanpur where half of the mothers received gender related message on newborn care, the situation was very poor in the rest three districts. This reflects the urgent need to reorient ASHAs on the essential birth planning and newborn care messages using the structured mentoring and coaching approach, both, onsite in field and facility based by the supportive supervision structure of ASHA Sanginis, ANMs and Medical Officers for better adherence on delivery of the content, timing and quality of messages on newborn care to the prospective and lactating mothers in the community. Dr. Tridibesh Tripathy | George Philip "Role of Ashas in Delivering New Born Care Messages to Pregnant and Lactating Mothers in Uttar Pradesh, India" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-1 , December 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd29411.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/medicine/other/29411/role-of-ashas-in-delivering-new-born-care-messages-to-pregnant-and-lactating-mothers-in-uttar-pradesh-india/dr-tridibesh-tripathy